


Tomorrow's Dawn

by ElectricZ



Series: For Tomorrow [6]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Collectors, Complete, Drama, Friendship, Gen, Geth, Quarian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23369062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectricZ/pseuds/ElectricZ
Summary: Legion has been destroyed in battle, much to Tali's relief. When tasked with recovering the geth's memory, her hatred of the geth may prevent her from fulfilling her duty until she learns why it's so important.
Series: For Tomorrow [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/992595
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	1. The Sole Casualty

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct sequel to "Dancer in the Dark," which should be read before proceeding. Thanks for reading!

It should have been another routine shift in Engineering, but since the geth's arrival on the ship, routine no longer existed for Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.

She stared at the mission clock pinned to her main holo screen, as she was prone to do anytime Shepard was off the ship. It had been two hours, fifteen minutes, since he'd departed with the geth on a "routine" mission to wipe out raiders harassing shipping in the local systems. Now, twelve minutes, ten seconds had passed since Shepard called for an emergency extraction and the _Normandy_ crew scrambled to battle stations. Miranda re-positioned the ship to low orbit to expedite recovery of the shuttle. Garrus charged every weapon including the Thanix cannon. And Tali, Gabby and Ken did their level best to make sure maneuvering, weapons and sensors had all the power they needed at their disposal.

And, as usual, no one would tell the Engineering section what was going on, which only made the anticipation worse. In that, Tali wasn't alone.

"What do you think happened?" Gabby asked, her eyes never leaving her console.

"Dunno," Ken said. "The geth finally popped its cork, maybe? Whatever set this off, Garrus pulls any more power we're gonna be able to fry an egg on the deck. We must be expecting company. What do you think, ma'am?"

Tali tightened her grip on her console. She'd spent her life preparing for geth attack. She'd been the only senior officer on the _Normandy_ anticipating it. She'd warned them all - Shepard, Miranda, Garrus... everyone. Only Ken and Gabby took her warnings to heart. The geth was a walking landmine, just waiting to take out the overly trusting organics on the ship. It was just a matter of time. That Shepard took the geth's word over hers, after everything he'd seen, after everything Tali and her people had endured, brought tears to her eyes. If the worst had happened, would she be able to say anything more than _I told you so...?_

"Mind your panels," she said. "Be ready for anything."

"Aye, ma'am."

"Shuttle arriving," EDI said in her characteristically calm tone. "Trauma team, report to hangar deck."

"Oh shit," Gabby muttered.

Tali dreaded the next few minutes. Because of Cerberus protocol, EDI's announcements could be very sketchy, sharing information only on a "need to know" basis. So sometimes no one outside of the command staff or medical team ever knew the extent of the injuries until they were briefed. But she always imagined the worst, because Shepard was always in the line of fire. And with a geth on the landing party, _worst_ had horrifying new connotations. Minutes passed.

"Recovery complete," EDI announced. "Chief Zorah, Report to the hangar deck. All hands, maintain battle stations."

Gabby and Ken both looked over at their superior with surprise.

Tali was also taken aback at her summoning. She pointed to their monitors. "Stay here," she said. "I'll find out what's going on."

"Yes, ma'am," they said in unison and returned their focus to their instruments as Tali headed for the lift.

By nature, Tali always looked for the worst-case scenario. It was vital to her skill as a troubleshooter: start at the core and work outward, ensure the most critical systems were functional, then look for failures in the periphery. She wasn't needed as a medic, so why was she being called? A problem with the shuttle, she thought. Propulsion or life support, maybe? As she strode to the elevator she spoke to the AI. "EDI, any information on the casualties?"

"I'm sorry, Tali," EDI said. "I am not at liberty to provide details at this time. All I can share is that there is one critical injury, and one fatality."

The word _fatality_ made Tali's heart sink. She quickened her pace. "Is Commander Shepard all right?"

"Commander Shepard is uninjured."

 _Thank the gods,_ Tali thought. But if Shepard was alive, that meant someone else wasn't.

The elevator door hissed open into the hangar bay. Support personnel swarmed the Kodiak. Doctor Chakwas and a pair of medical techs worked around a stretcher set atop a cargo crate. The patient lying on his back screamed to no one in particular, his body covered with med packs and a stasis field from the waist down. Jacob held him down by his shoulders.

"Bloody goddamn praetorian!" Zaeed Massani growled through clenched teeth. "I'll fuck every skull it's got right in the eyes for this!" Next to the stretcher, a medic sprayed medigel over the stump of Zaeed's right leg, severed at the thigh.

Chakwas's voice was calm. "It was a clean separation at both ends," she said. "You'll be back on both feet in an hour with some nice new scars."

"You're a goddamn angel, luv," Zaeed said as the anesthetic finally took hold and he passed out.

"I thought he'd never go under," Chakwas muttered. "Alright he's stable. Let's get him upstairs."

Tali stayed out of the way as the medical team attended to the human mercenary. She moved next to Jacob. "What happened?"

"Collector ambush," Jacob said, wiping sweat from his brow. "They hit us from all sides. Got hairy toward the end."

"EDI said there was a fatality," Tali said nervously. "Who didn't make it back?"

"Legion," Jacob shook his head. "Praetorian got him."

"Keelah!" Tali clapped her hands together. "I thought someone had been killed."

Jacob frowned at her. "Didn't you hear what I said? Legion's dead."

"Legion is a _machine,"_ Tali said with more irritation than she intended. " _It_ can't die because it's not alive."

"Well, 'it' just saved our asses." Jacob pushed his way past her. "So pardon me if I want to show 'it' a little respect. Shepard's waiting for you inside."

Tali watched him board the lift with the medical team and the doors slid shut. There was a time not too long ago where Jacob was her most trusted ally against the geth after Shepard decided to keep it on board, but even Jacob eventually turned on her. He started treating Legion like a pet, or worse, a friend - just like everyone else. She shook her head and walked up the ramp to the shuttle. She found Shepard sitting on the aft bench of the passenger compartment, staring towards the front of the ship. When he didn't acknowledge her, she turned to see what he was looking at.

The geth was strapped into one of the forward seats, presumably so its mass wouldn't shift in transport. Its superstructure sagged in the belts, its limbs dangling toward the deck. The usual flutter of its head panels was noticeably absent, and its central aperture was cold and dark. White conductive fluid pooled in the seat and floor around it.

"Is there anything you can do for him?" Shepard asked.

Tali bristled at the pronoun. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't happy to see the geth platform like this. If it were damaged beyond repair, it would ease many of her fears and repair a lot of damaged relationships on board the ship. But she would at least take a look, for Shepard's sake.

She activated her omnitool and waved the glowing interface around, casting shadows across the geth's inert form. She'd analyzed hundreds of destroyed geth and knew exactly what to look for. "Power output zero," she read the results aloud. "Batteries depleted. All generators burned out. Extensive internal damage. Sixty-two percent of its servos are out. Checking core memory matrix..."

A wave of relief washed over her, and she fought not to show it. The geth's memory cores were fried to slag. "Either its self destruct protocol triggered or there was a massive electrical overload. In either case there's not much left in there."

"Damn it," Shepard rested his elbows on his knees and stared at the destroyed robot.

Tali stared at him. Shepard was the worst offender when it came to anthropomorphizing the geth and the others always followed his lead. She sat next to him, facing the geth. "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do," she said. "So what happened? I mean, if you want to talk about it."

"I don't know where to start."

"Well, that's okay," Tali said, trying to sound cheerful. "Why don't you go get cleaned up? I'll take care of things here. We can talk later."

Shepard stood with a sigh. "No, I've got to talk to the Illusive Man first. Tell him what we found down there. What are you going to do with him?"

"Who?"

"Legion."

Again, Tali tensed at the use of a formal name. "Take it apart, send it back to the fleet." From the look on Shepard's face, Tali knew what was coming next. She stood to face him. Ordinarily she'd say something to lift his spirits, something funny or charming but it didn't come. After everything she'd put up with since the geth's arrival, every concession and compromise, she couldn't back down on this one. "That was our deal, Shepard. If anything happened to the geth, I could send it to the fleet."

"I know," Shepard said. He stared sadly at the geth. "Guess that armor didn't do either of us any good."

Tali scowled. "What?"

Shepard turned back to you. "Before you cut him up and ship him off, I need you to do something for me."

"Anything." An uneasy feeling spread through Tali's gut.

"Access his systems. Look everywhere you can. Memory caches, backup devices, you know better than me. See if you can piece anything together from the last day. Anything at all."

"I don't know, it's taken a terrible shock. There might not be anything left to recover-" Shepard's weary, shattered expression stopped her mid-sentence. "I'll do everything I can. I promise."

Shepard nodded and stepped towards the hatch, giving the geth shell a parting glance before descending wordlessly down the ramp.

Tali glared at the burned-out hulk. "Great. Just when I finally get rid of you."

 _Maybe this isn't a bad thing after all,_ Tali thought. She'd seen many inactive geth in various states of disrepair, but never one as advanced as this mobile platform. Before sending it back to the fleet, she might find out what data it stole when it hacked her omnitool, and what it did with it. The geth said it had not transmitted the data back to the collective. Shepard bought it, but Tali knew better. Sharing data was what geth did best. Finding out for sure would be worth the effort.

 _How father would have liked to examine this._ Tali's excitement at the prospect of dissecting the geth waned. It was this kind of tampering that got her father and everyone aboard the _Alarei_ killed. That was reason enough alone to crate up the remains of the geth and get it off the ship as soon as possible. Simply applying power to its components could put the ship at risk. If she had her way, she'd open the hangar door and jettison in to space right then.

Tali thought of the anguish in Shepard's eyes. _No. You promised. You're not going to break your word. Not to him._ She called into the air. "EDI, you there?"

"Yes, Tali," came the immediate response from the ship's AI.

"Send a team down to move the geth to the science lab. I'll up in few minutes."

"Right away, Tali."

Tali stepped through the hatch and the lights switched off behind her, leaving Legion slumped in its seat, alone in the dark.


	2. Good Mourning

"So, how'd it go down there?"

Tali shook her head at Ken as she walked toward the locker in Engineering where she stored her tools. "It wasn't raiders after all, it was Collectors. Shepard took them out, but Zaeed was pretty badly hurt."

The mix of good news and bad, combined with Tali's detached tone made her subordinates look at one another. "He gonna be okay?" Gabby asked.

"Should be. Doctor Chakwas is working on him. But the big news is our geth was destroyed."

"YES," Ken high-fived Gabby and both of them turned to Tali to repeat the gesture. Their cheers died when Tali continued to stock her tool belt.

Gabby wore a frozen smile. "Uh, that's good news... isn't it?"

"Very good news." Tali nodded, completed her loadout, then closed the locker. "But Shepard wants me to review its memory before I ship it back to the Fleet. So we're not done with it yet."

"What for?"

"Doesn't matter." Tali turned to face them. "He asked me to do it, so I'm doing it. But the second I'm done, it's gone. So how are things in here? Anything I need to know about before I go?"

"Not a thing," Ken said. "Gabby and I are on the case. Go take care of it."

"Damn right," Gabby. "You need anything at all, you know where to find us. Tools, an extra set of hands-"

"A full body massage," Ken interjected, followed by an _oof_ as Gabby smacked his shoulder. They both grinned at Tali, waiting for her reaction.

All she could muster was a tired smile. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't celebrate until the geth was off her ship. "I'll be in the lab if anything comes up. Hopefully this won't take too long. Call if you need me."

Ken and Gabby glanced at each other once again. Gabby tried one last time. "Put some extra holes in it while you're at it, just to be sure!"

Tali waved and walked back to the main elevator and punched the button for deck three instead of deck two. She needed to pick up one more thing before reporting to the Lab. She entered her quarters and knelt at her bunk to open the drawer underneath.

She pulled out a heavy satchel and set it on her bed to examine its contents. The _Normandy's_ shop had one of the finest tool collections in the galaxy, but she'd need specific instruments designed to work with geth technology. The kit was a tangle of wires, tools and geth components, still jumbled after dealing with the disaster on the _Alarei,_ but everything looked to be present and accounted for. The most important device was a functional geth omnitool she salvaged from a juggernaut Shepard destroyed on Feros years ago. Just that one piece of hardware alone cut the time to interface with geth wreckage in the field by half.

But each of the tools had a history. Some were hers, some were handed down by her father. One particular driver in her kit dated all the way back to Rannoch. Used in a household electronics store to repair malfunctioning geth, it might have ended up enshrined in a museum as a sacred artifact from the homeworld if weren't still a valuable, functional tool.

Tali flipped the satchel shut and noticed a dark stain on the flap. Grease? Solvent? It flaked off when she scratched it. Dried blood, she realized, from the _Alarei._ A few years ago she would have compulsively scrubbed it clean after squicking out. Now? She briefly wondered whose blood it was before slinging the bag over her shoulder and heading back to the lift.

* * *

CIC was abuzz with the usual activity. "Hi Tali," Kelly scribbled on her datapad as Tali stepped from the elevator. "The Lab's ready for you."

Tali nodded without stopping, her affability another casualty of the geth's presence on board.

"It's terrible what happened down there, isn't it?"

Tali sighed and stared at the deck, her voice carefully neutral. "Hopefully his leg can be reattached."

"Oh, I meant Legion," Kelly said. "Zaeed'll be fine. He's a tough old bastard. Doctor Chakwas already halfway through the procedure. Guess we'll have a new war story to listen to tomorrow, huh?"

"Mmm," Tali said and continued to the Lab.

Kelly called after her. "Do you think you can fix him?"

"Fix who?"

"Legion."

"For the last time," Tali snapped, loud enough for everyone in CIC to hear. "It's not a _he,_ it's a machine! I don't know why it's so hard for you people to get that!" All eyes turned at the sudden outburst and CIC fell silent. Kelly looked particularly stunned. Tali returned their stares with narrowed eyes. "And no, I don't think it can be fixed."

She turned on her heel and stomped toward the Lab. The sooner she cracked open the geth, the sooner she could banish it from the ship. Then, maybe, both she and life aboard the _Normandy_ might return to normal. The hatch opened, and Tali stopped dead in her tracks. Mordin, Kasumi, Thane, Jacob, and Garrus all hovered around the geth, sprawled on its back on the workbench in the middle of the compartment.

"Come on bot-buddy," Kasumi wiggled one of the geth's fingers. "Wake up! Where's your reset button, huh?"

"I doubt he can hear you," Thane said. "There is no power in any of his systems."

Kasumi leaned close to the geth's central lens aperture. "Of course he can hear us. He's just sleeping."

Jacob's expression remained dour. "Shepard said he was down for the count. That's what Tali told him, anyway."

"Unfortunately that's correct," Tali said. Everyone in the room turned to look at the quarian.

"Hey look," Kasumi now shook the geth's wrist. "It's Creator-Tali'Zorah! See, you'll be just fine. She can fix anything."

The geth's epithet for quarians made Tali grimace under her mask. "I'm going to have to ask all of you to leave. I need to concentrate."

Her squad mates looked at one another. When they didn't move, Garrus ushered them toward the door. "Alright everybody, let's let her work. Why don't we go see how Zaeed's doing?"

Thankfully, they finally started milling toward the hatch. Jacob gave the geth's shoulder a thump as he walked by and Kasumi gently placed its arm across its chest, patting it lightly before walking away.

"It can't be fixed," Tali told Kasumi as she passed. "I'm just recovering data."

Kasumi glared back at her. "Would it kill you to at least pretend that you're trying?"

Tali turned away sharply and continued toward the table.

Mordin massaged the air with empty hands before pulling a tray of probes and drills from a nearby drawer. "Never examined geth. Brand new exposure. Very stimulating! Where do we start?"

"Thank you, Mordin," Tali said tersely. "But I really prefer to work alone."

Mordin looked back and forth between Tali and Garrus. "But... it's my lab."

Tali set her satchel on the workbench at the feet of the geth. "Well, it's mine now."

The salarian's already huge eyes widened. "Beg your pardon?"

"She needs to borrow it," Garrus stepped between them, "just for a little while. Please?"

"Fine," Mordin said with a sniff, replacing his instruments one at a time in the cabinet. "Will be waiting in Engineering, since we're trading spaces. Plenty of important things to occupy time there. Perhaps the Commander will drop by to play poker." The salarian stalked out the door.

That left only one more problem for Tali to deal with, and he would undoubtedly be the toughest. "I'll let you know when I'm done," she told Garrus.

Garrus studied her for a moment. "You going to be okay in here?"

"Mm-hmm. The Science Lab is more than adequate for this task."

"That's not what I meant." Garrus moved next to her. "Are _you_ okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Tali searched through her satchel for nothing in particular.

"You used to drag people in to watch you tear down one of these things. It was almost a spectator sport."

"Was it?"

Garrus leaned against the workbench next to her. "Look, we all know how badly damaged he is. No one's going to blame you if you can't bring him back."

Tali slammed her hands against the table and whirled to face the turian.

"Tali, talk to me." He cocked his head at her. "What's bothering you?"

"What's bothering me?" Tali's eyes burned behind her faceplate. "Everybody treating this thing like a damn person! 'How's _he_ doing?', 'Can you fix _him?'_ , 'Oh, it's terrible what happened to _him,_ isn't it?' Even giving it a name in the first place!"

"People name their machines all the time. Just ask your little friend Chik'tikka. I'm sure _she_ would agree."

"When was the last time any of you held a vigil for my combat drone?"

Garrus shrugged. "Never. But I don't recall the last time she engaged me in meaningful conversation, either. Look, Legion's different, I'll admit. I didn't particularly like him when Shepard powered him on, but he grew on me. He grew on all of us."

"Well then, all of you can go to hell!"

"Hey-"

"What, you honestly need me to explain? These things wiped out our entire civilization! They drove us from our homeworld, and the entire galaxy turned their backs on us! You, the asari, the salarians...you banished us from civilized space and called it genocide when we tried to fight back! We've been completely on our own for three hundred years!"

Tali circled around the table, glaring at the immobile geth. _"They_ sided with the reapers. _They_ attacked the Citadel. They've killed billions of my people, my friends, my father..." She choked back her tears. "They've brought nothing but death and destruction wherever they go, but somehow, _we're_ the villains. The Citadel has put more restrictions on the Migrant Fleet than the geth! And not _once_ have we gotten the tiniest bit of sympathy or help, from any of you!"

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she stared into the geth's dark lens. "And even here, on the _Normandy_ , among my closest friends... Whose side have you taken?" Garrus just looked at the floor. His silence seared her heart worse than anything he could have said. Tali looked back to the geth. "That's what I thought."

"I know it might not have seemed like it of late," Garrus said softly, "But I _am_ on your side. We all are."

Tali leaned back against the table, arms crossed. "Could've fooled me."

"We're just... on the outside of the whole thing. I can't speak for anyone else but I just got used to having Legion around. It got to be normal." Garrus shook his head at himself, and settled next to her against the table. "It's a lousy excuse. It's too easy to forget someone else's past. I'm sorry."

Tali sniffed. They were the right words, but they were just words. "Everyone is so shocked I can't get over it. Like it was just a bad break-up, or something. But nothing's changed. Not for me. Not for any of us."

They sat in silence for a few moments, until Garrus spoke again. "Do you think you ever will? Get over it I mean."

"I don't know, are you over Omega?"

Garrus blinked, then cleared his throat. "I suppose I earned that."

_No you didn't,_ Tali thought. It was the absolute worst thing she could have said to one of her closest friends, and she regretted it the second it came from her mouth. But there was no taking it back. "Look, I know it's not what everyone wants to hear, but no. I can't. The universe doesn't work that way."

"I guess not," Garrus said with a sigh. After a few more seconds, he stood and started for the forward hatch. "I should let you get to work." He stopped before the door sensor could activate and looked over his shoulder. "You know, we went to war with humans the first time we met them."

"Do you really think it's the same?"

"Not even close. But the hate was just as real. The point is we got better. It took a lot of time and effort, but we got over it. We don't have to hate them anymore."

"I'm happy for all of you."

"So am I. Otherwise I wouldn't be serving the best commander I've ever had, with the best friends I've ever known. Let me know if you need anything." The hatch whooshed shut behind him.

Tali let out a long, heavy sigh. As much as she appreciated his heartfelt sentiment, Garrus's attempt to frame reconciliation between his kind and the humans with the geth uprising just didn't apply. Their war was over. Hers was not.

She didn't want to think about it anymore. She dug through her satchel for the geth omnitool. She powered it on and felt around inside the cavity in the platform's chest - a convenience that made prying off a panel unnecessary - then snapped a lead from the omni into a recessed socket. Her holographic instrument pulsed to life.

With any luck, the memory test would fail and she'd be on her way to dinner in a couple of minutes. She might actually feel like eating, for a change. And if not, well, she might just find out what data the geth had actually stolen from her after all - and anything else that might still reside in memory. As the geth omni started its diagnostic, she thought back to her encounter with the geth in the AI Core. She had it dead to rights, point-blank range, with a full load of disruptor rounds. All she had to do was pull the trigger.

But then Shepard walked in.

Every other time, he was at her side, rifle to cheek, laying waste to her enemy. She never even needed to ask him. In their years together, Shepard annihilated as many geth as a company of Fleet Marines. Defending the the Migrant Fleet was as important to Shepard as it was to Tali, or so she thought.

Then he ordered her to stand down and spare the geth when she caught it scanning her omnitool. It was bad enough when he decided to power up the geth in the first place. She begged him not to do it. He had the first geth captured intact, ever. He could have sent it to the Fleet. He could have ended three centuries of exile. Instead, Shepard gave the geth free run of the ship and started inviting it to dinner. And then he stopped her from blasting it to scrap. He couldn't even see the look of anguish on her face because of the infernal mask her kind was forced to wear, thanks to the geth.

A soft ping from the geth omni pulled Tali back into the lab. Its virtual displays sparkled to life as it traced the geth's dormant circuitry. She nodded with satisfaction. The primary memory was obliterated, with no chance of recovery. It was going to be an early night, after all. Out of thoroughness, she switched to the secondary non-volatile memory core, used by the geth to reboot after powering down for ambushes. Undoubtedly the geth's self-destruct protocol had fried it as well. Once she confirmed that, she could honestly report to Shepard the platform was a total loss and put the whole gods-awful nightmare behind her.

The geth onmitool glittered with a cascade of raw data and code. Exabytes of perfectly preserved information still resided in the platform's static memory bank. It wasn't just a reactivation cache, but a volume of data thousands of times beyond anything Tali had seen. Her hands trembled as she patched her own omni into the geth model to validate the data. From what she could see, the logfiles chronicled the platform's journey back to when it was first activated.

She leapt around to the table's main console. This time, there would be no outside interference. With a push of a button, the holo displays on the doors into the lab switched from green to red as the hatches locked shut. If she found what she was looking for, three centuries of exile might end within hours.

She just hoped that she had enough time.


	3. Digital Grail

The progress meter on the omnitool ticked from five to six percent, now half an hour into mapping the geth's static memory.

Tali paced as she watched the frozen indicator. Shepard's geth had amassed a wealth of information since leaving the Perseus Veil. It would take days to sift through it all, days she did not have. She should just strip it down to the frame and send it back to the Fleet where it could be analyzed properly, safely, and in a fraction of the time.

The facilities on the _Alarei_ could do the work in minutes where it would be safe and secure, directly in the hands of those who needed it most. And who knew what other intelligence they might uncover? Not just the virus, but locations of geth hubs throughout the galaxy. Production facilities and resource points that could be commandeered by the Fleet. Strongholds and fortifications on and around Rannoch. Tali's heart raced again thinking about the potential.

Tali resumed her pacing. The geth omnitool could easily trace a standard platform's parallel processes, but this geth had over a thousand, so she could only effectively view a tenth of them at a time. Logical branches turned into digital mazes with multiple dead ends when nine out of ten paths disappeared from view. It was like trying to map the ship's electrical system with a microscope.

Her own omnitool was similarly thwarted. The geth processes weren't just more numerous, they were more advanced. Some libraries existed in her catalogue, but most were coming up as 'unknown' and would continue to do so until her omni could make sense of them.

Then there were instances when all of the geth's programs seemed to activate at once, responding to commands outside the normal pipeline. Any time the omnitool read such a logic bomb it would hang for several minutes to catch up. Doing a high level scan, she mapped where they occurred throughout the logfiles. She might not be able to decipher their purpose, but she could at least avoid them and keep her omni from grinding to a halt.

Something else that piqued Tali's curiosity was the frequency of the interrupt events. In two years, there were 948 occurrences, seven hundred of which occurred just in the weeks after the geth was brought aboard the _Normandy._ And after departing with Shepard on its final outing? The log was so choked with interrupts that analysis was impossible. In fact, the geth appeared to be suffering from one long interrupt event up to the point it was physically destroyed, which raised one important question.

"Why didn't you self destruct?" Tali asked the inert machine. It was the most basic function built into every geth platform to prevent capture. Independent hardware sensors throughout their platforms monitored their physical state, set to trigger self destruct if a percentage of them registered failures. Did it fail because of a coding error? Or did the platform suffer such overwhelming damage the code couldn't execute? So far, there was no correlation between temperature or voltage spikes that she could see.

Tali checked the omnitool again. It was still stuck at six percent. She looked around Mordin's console. The lab's computers had enough processing power and storage space to speed the analysis over a hundred times, but were they isolated from the rest of the ship? Would EDI be able to detect what she was doing? Given the sheer amount of data inside the geth's memory, how would she transmit it all back to the fleet?

And what would Shepard do when he found out? Tali hung her head, again flashing back to when her gun was pointed at the geth's head, and Shepard kept her from turning the wretched machine into scrap, balancing the safety and security of the geth collective against that of the Migrant Fleet as if they were equal. What would he do if he found out the geth's memory didn't just contain a few lost hours, but maybe the key to defeating the geth?

She couldn't risk it. She had to get the memory cores out of the geth and back to the fleet as soon as possible. And she had to keep Shepard from finding out.

A knock on the hatch to CIC made Tali jump. Sooner or later, someone was bound to ask why the door was locked. She made a quick survey of the lab. _It looks like someone's working on a geth in here,_ she thought. _Which is what you're doing. Why would anyone suspect anything else? It will only make them wonder if you don't answer._ Tali pushed a button and the hatch opened with a hiss.

"Ma'am?" Gabriella Daniels poked her head through. "Can I come in?"

"Of course!" Tali walked out to the research station to stand in front of Gabby, blocking her view of the geth. "Is everything all right?"

Gabby glanced about after the hatch closed behind her. "Yeah, everything's running real smooth. I hope I'm not interrupting."

"It's okay." Tali knew Gabby wouldn't have come to see her to report all was well. "What's going on?"

"Well, Ken and I... We caught some chatter over gossip net. You know how it is, people are talking."

Tali sighed. She couldn't imagine what was being said after today. "I haven't been following it."

"Yeah," Gabby stammered, "well, um..."

"What are they saying?"

"Well... that you blew up at Kelly. I mean, anybody else on the ship deserves it one time or another. Lawson, sure. Garrus? Yeah, when doesn't he deserve it? But Kelly? That's... just not you, ma'am."

"I know. I shouldn't have yelled at her. I need to apologize, and I will. Just not right now. But you and Ken don't need to worry about this. It's just... talk. It'll all be over after today. It's not your problem, okay?"

Gabby nodded vigorously. "Oh, yeah it is. You're the best chief we ever had. I mean, we're just wrenches, but you always treat us real good. Always looking out for us, you know? I just want you to know you're not alone in this. Me and Ken, we got your back no matter what. Anything you need, you got it. We'll help you fix that thing or drag it to the trash compactor, you just say the word. We're just worried about you, boss."

Tali stared. For weeks, everyone on the ship slowly distanced themselves from her as the geth gained acceptance in their ranks, even Garrus and Shepard. Everyone still chatted and joked with her, but the geth itself became a blindspot to them, as if they stopped acknowledging it, the problem would go away... everyone except Ken and Gabby. Tali couldn't stop herself. She reached out and hugged the junior engineer.

"Woah." Gabby returned the hug. "Wow, uh... Ken's gonna be sorry he didn't come up."

For the first time since coming back from the _Alarei,_ Tali laughed hard enough to overcome her tears. She took a moment to compose herself. "Oh, he would've gotten a pat on the head. At best."

Gabby grinned. "You know if he were here he'd tell you he's got two heads..."

Tali laughed again, thoroughly enjoying feeling something other than misery for a change. "Yes, I'm well aware of his talent for turning anything into innuendo."

"Well, if he ever stopped that, we'd know something was wrong with _him."_

"I think we know that already," Tali said with a long, happy sigh. "Thank you, Gabby."

Gabby beamed. "You're welcome. Well, uh... if there's nothing I can do for you here, I'll get back down to the hole. We just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I appreciate it. I really do. Tell Ken, too."

"I will." Gabby nodded and walked out but stopped short of the hatch. "You know, with Zaeed in the infirmary, Starboard Cargo's clear. No witnesses," She winked. "Just sayin'."

"I'll let you know," Tali smiled back. With the hatch sealed and locked once more, he smile faded when she returned to the lab table and its unwilling subject. She picked up a plasma cutter and gauged where to make the first cut.

Her eyes fell on the red and black armor plating the geth used to repair itself. The N7 logo was even more badly scraped and faded than before, but still recognizable. Shepard commented that it failed to save him, either. She thought back to the haunted look in his eyes and stared at the plasma cutter in her hand.

The voices of the admiralty board echoed in her head. Four different voices, four different viewpoints. Retake the homeworld, or find a new home. Destroy the geth, or retake control of them. The admirals were all pulling in different directions, with the quarian people divided between them. Would what Tali recovered from the geth unify them, or just make things worse?

She'd never thought the Admiralty Board would risk the Fleet for the sake of politics, but her trial proved otherwise. Any one of them might classify the geth data to further their own ends. They tried to destroy her father's reputation, threatening to tear the fleet to further their own goals when they should have been pulling together. Not one of them stood up for her. Not Shala'Raan, not even Han'Gerrel, who was more of a father to her than Rael'Zorah had been.

_No one but Shepard,_ Tali remembered. She set the cutting torch down and picked up the geth omni, still reading six percent. She killed the analytics. Shepard would get his lost hours _._ She would make sure of it.

As unique as this platform was, its audio and video codecs were a standard geth format, and the logs could be viewed as they were converted in real time. She could keep her promise to Shepard and send the memory cores on their way.

She set the data stream to start when the shuttle left the _Normandy_ that morning and play until the very end of the logfile. For the next two hours, she would see the world through the eyes of the geth...


	4. The Lost Hours

"Woah, shit!" Jacob said as he grabbed hold of his seat's shoulder harness. To his right, Zaeed Massani pressed his helmet against his skull to steady the tactical projection in his eye. He looked up briefly at the Kodiak's sudden movement but said nothing.

_"Sorry about that, guys,"_ came the pilot's voice over their comms. _"We're hitting some rough air. Be through it in a minute. Sit tight."_

Across the aisle at the front of the cabin, Shepard braced against the Kodiak's sudden jostling, focused on the shared tactical display in his own visor. Next to him, Legion sat perfectly balanced in its seat, listening to the organics surrounding him. Outside the windows, a hazy orange soup obscured any sign of the planet below.

"Yeah, we'd be looking at ten, twelve guys tops." Zaeed said. "I took down a few of these little hidey-hole operations a couple years ago in the Attican Traverse. They're good money makers as long as no one gets wise. Pick your targets carefully, don't kill anyone important. Don't get greedy and nobody serious will come looking for you. But sooner or later they always piss off the wrong people. Then this happens."

Zaeed zoomed in on the central structure. The collapsed remnants of a rusted, thirty-meter dome jutted like a boil from the dull brown rocks and sand of a stony caldera. "That was their hangar. Caught a 500-kegger of HE, from the looks of it. Can't tell if the ship was in there or not. No other structures above ground. The barracks would've been under the hangar, or they just bunked on the ship. Might have a cave or tunnel in the back wall for extra loot. But these guys are history. No camouflage. We'd never have spotted them from orbit if they were still in business. Wouldn't count on finding anything when we get there."

Shepard nodded. "Rolston? How long to the LZ?"

_"Fifteen minutes,"_ the pilot responded.

"The place looks dead but let's stick to a stealth approach as per the briefing."

_"Roger that."_

"Hoofing it again, huh?" Jacob asked. "Think we don't get enough exercise, Shepard?"

"It's two goddamn klicks," Zaeed said. "When I was doing black bag jobs around Urdak, I walked further than that in a full vac armor just to get a beer."

"I just keep mine in the fridge."

Zaeed rolled his eyes even though he only had the one good one. "Well, I hope to god you don't get a blister or something 'cause I ain't carrying you back."

"Me, either," Shepard said.

"Man, no love here." Jacob shook his head. "What about you, Legion?"

"Ready for inquiry, Taylor-Jacob." the geth said.

"C'mon, man. We've been through this a hundred times. Just call me Jacob."

Shepard smirked. "Good luck with that. I think names are hardwired into him. No matter how many times I've told him, he still calls me Shepard-Commander." He turned to Legion with an indignant expression. "I have a first name, you know."

"Of course, Shepard-Commander."

The three humans laughed. "Wait," Shepard said. "You like that, you'll love this. Hey, Legion, I really like that armor. Why'd you choose that particular piece, again?"

Legion's central aperture whirled and the plates surrounding its face flared out at once. "No data available."

"No data available," Shepard folded his arms across his chest. "It's the same thing every time. I got a robot playing hard to get."

"Aw, come on, Legion," Jacob said. "Spill it. We're all friends here."

"No data available."

"You know what," Jacob said to Zaeed, "I think he's embarrassed. Looks like someone's got a crush on the Commander."

"Careful Shepard," Zaeed said. "Zorah's already got this thing in her sights. Hell hath no fury like an engineer scorned."

Legion panned its camera-like head back and forth between the humans.

Jacob winced. "Oh, no doubt. Y'all saw what she did to Grunt, right? Took him two days to get his armor back to the original color."

"He looked good in pink," Shepard said. "Not the best camouflage, though."

Jacob grinned. "She know how much time you two have been spending together? She strikes me as the jealous type."

"Yeah," Zaeed said. "Stay away from love triangles, Shepard, they're trouble."

* * *

Tali slammed her hand down to pause the playback. It was bad enough the humans were treating the geth like one of the guys, but that they brought her feelings for Shepard into it just made it worse. _Just tear out the memory module and be done with this whole wretched thing,_ she thought. It would only take a few minutes. Then all she'd have to do is claim that she wasn't able to recover any data, and it would be all over.

She sighed and turned her attention back to geth omni. It was still churning away, trying to decipher the geth's heavily customized code, and the progress meter was all the way up to seven percent.

Another marker on the display caught her eye. The geth registered interrupt event when Shepard asked about why it wore his old armor. Every program inside the geth started its own process, calling a procedure she couldn't identify. The end result was a null set. Regardless of what its processes were doing, the geth wasn't being evasive when it relayed that no data had been returned. But what information was it trying to retrieve? The omnitool still had not scanned enough to provide any information. Without the question, the answer was meaningless.

She took a deep breath and resumed the video playback as the analyzer continued its work. Duty, and curiosity, always won out over pride.

* * *

Shepard massaged his temples. "Oh, you guys are hilarious. Help me out here, Legion. Tell them what we've been doing."

Legion's head swayed back and forth like a cobra as it spoke. "We have been sharing the experiences of the geth collective with Shepard-Commander, detailing our creation, evolution, and emancipation from the creators during the Morning War."

Jacob scowled. "Morning War?"

"It's what the geth call their uprising," Shepard said. "Think 'First Contact War' versus 'Relay 314 Incident.'"

Zaeed grunted. "Names are just labels for history books. Only thing that matters is who wins and who loses."

Jacob looked at Shepard. "Except the losers are around to talk about it. All kidding aside, what's Tali's take on this? She's put up a tough front the past few weeks, but it's pretty clear she's still out for blood. Or whatever Legion's got in there."

Shepard looked through the window into the orange murk. The sun was trying to shine through the haze, but it was a losing battle. "Didn't help the other day when Legion tried to hack her omnitool."

Jacob winced at the geth. "What were you thinking? Pink, dude! PINK!"

"Creator-Tali'Zorah was collecting weapon test data on geth subjects," Legion said, "We judged it necessary for our protection to return this data to the collective. If the creators did not intend to continue hostilities with the collective, they would have no need for this information."

"True," Shepard said. "But breaking into her omni was the worst move you could've made. She trusts you even less than before, if that's possible."

"Creator-Tali'Zorah's distrust is unwarranted. We were reacting to creator hostility. We do not wish to incite."

"Well, from her perspective she was reacting to you stealing her data. She's still pissed off about it."

"We have purged the data acquired from her omnitool from our memory."

Jacob shook his had. "Little late now."

Shepard blinked. "Deleted it? I thought you just agreed not to transmit it back to the collective?"

"We purged the data from our system after the altercation. We believed it would facilitate trust with Creator-Tali'Zorah by permanently removing the threat of transmission of the data."

"Does Tali know you did that?"

"Unknown. Creator-Tali'Zorah has not sought communication with us since."

Shepard looked about with confusion. "Did you seek communication with her?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Yeah," Jacob said. "You would have scored massive points with her."

"We do not wish to incite," Legion explained. "We judged that our continued interaction would result in further conflict."

"But she doesn't know about it. How can that facilitate trust?"

The plates around Legion's head flapped several times in unison. "She did not wish us to have the data. We deleted the data. We removed the source of the conflict."

"Jacob's right," Shepard said. "It didn't do any good if Tali never knew about it. Why didn't you tell her?" The plates around Legion's head did another dance as the shuttle rocked in the unstable air. The three humans stared at the now-silent geth. "Hey," Shepard leaned forward. "Are you afraid of her?"

Zaeed adjusted the chestplate of his armor. "He would be, if he had any sense in 'im."

The geth's head plates finished their reconfiguration. "No data available," it finally said.

"Damn," Shepard said in amazement.

"What do you think that means, Commander?" Jacob asked.

"I don't know," Shepard said, still looking at Legion. "I don't think it's fear. He says the same thing to me. There's something else at play here. Ever notice how he usually never speaks first? He'll always answer a question, but he'll never ask one of his own unless you're already talking to him. In their world, you're part of a network, so you never have to ask. Everyone just knows. It might not have occurred to him that he had to tell Tali he deleted the information he took."

Other than the fluctuating aperture of Legion's eye, the geth remained still as it stared at the Commander.

"What are you getting at, Shepard?" asked Zaeed.

Shepard looked between his human companions. "This is all new to them. Talking. Communicating to gain information from someone else. They've studied organics, monitored us, know everything about us... but they've never talked to us. They don't know how. Their only sustained interaction with organics was with their creators, hundreds of years ago. And the quarians tried to wipe them out as a result. Do you know what started the geth uprising?"

"No. What?"

Shepard looked at the silent machine. "A geth asked a quarian a question. Legion?"

Legion's lens flared to it's widest setting. "Ready for inquiry."

"Are we the first organics the geth have had direct contact with since the Morning War?"

"Yes."

"You haven't talked with the Creators since?"

"No."

"And they haven't talked to you?"

"No."

"So they don't know anything about what you've told me, do they? What happened after the uprising?"

"We do not know if the Creators possess this information," Legion said.

"Legion," Shepard leaned closer. "You have to let Tali know. If I can convince her to listen, would you be willing to tell her everything you've told me?"

"We would welcome the opportunity. However, we judge that Creator-Tali'Zorah does not share the same desire."

Jacob's doubtful expression matched his tone. "Hate to say it but I think he's right. She's not gonna go for it, Shepard. No matter what you say. Those scars run deep."

"She's got to, " Shepard tried to mask the doubt in his own voice. "It's the only hope the quarians have. I'm telling you, with what he knows, we could be making a toast to peace by dinnertime. I'll get her to listen if I have to tie her down to do it."

"Kinky," Zaeed said, "But remember what I said about triangles."

Shepard opened his mouth to reply but Rolston interrupted. _"Two minutes, Commander."_

The shuttle turned and pitched down, then leveled off. Shepard stood and picked up his pack from beneath the seat. "All right, let's gear up, check our seals, and get this show on the road. And Legion? You and Tali are going to have a sit-down as soon as we get back to the ship."

"Thank god," Zaeed said and clamped his neck guard shut. He unslung his rifle and activated its sights. "All this heart-to-heart bullshit's giving me a bellyache."

"Just wait," Shepard pressure checked his own armor and stepped next to the shuttle's side hatch. "We'll try to fix what's wrong with you on the way back."


	5. Consensus Override

_"Here we are, guys,"_ Rolston's voice buzzed over the comm links in their helmets. _"Welcome to Clobaka. Nitrogen/methane atmosphere with an oxygen content of zero percent. Weather today is mostly cloudy, winds out of the south-southwest at ten to fifteen kilometers per hour, with a temperature of five degrees. Chance of a nice hydrocarbon sliming, fifty percent. So bundle up!"_

Shepard opened the hatch. A ring of water vapor puffed around the edges to be quickly swept away by the cold wind outside. The thick, misty atmosphere bathed the crew compartment in a drab orange glow. A rocky brown wall five meters away filled their view.

Legion waited for the organics to proceed before following them down the ramp. Shepard tapped his helmet. "Comm check, everybody reading? Everybody breathing?"

Zaeed stepped out and surveyed the surroundings. Rolston had put the Kodiak down in between two stony ridges to prevent the shuttle from being spotted assuming anyone was around to see it. "Roger, read you, pressure's good."

"Read you loud and clear, Commander. All green here," Jacob replied.

"Confirming reception," said Legion. "Respiration not applicable." Behind them, the shuttle ramp retracted and the hatch sealed shut.

"All right, let's move out." Shepard waved and led the squad on the short walk to the end of the ridge. "Tactical column once we reach open ground."

"Not much to look at, is it?" Zaeed said as they rounded the bend. Before them, a rusty volcanic plain stretched into the distance. The low hanging mist obscured horizon and rolled between dark igneous columns that jutted up in scattered clusters. The ground underfoot glistened with an oily, wet sheen.

"Any of you been here before?" Jacob asked, looking about from side to side as he walked.

"Not me," Zaeed said, also watching the surroundings carefully.

Jacob laughed. "What? Come on, you always have something to say no matter where we go. Like you took down some batarian merc cell here, or broker up a hanar dance company or some shit."

"I don't go places I don't got any business going to, kid," Zaeed didn't sound too annoyed at the prodding. "Nobody wants to do business here."

"There's more to life than a paycheck, my man," Jacob said. "What about you, Shepard?"

Shepard kept his eyes on the path ahead. "We took the SR1 to this system a couple years back. Garrus had some old business to take care of. But we didn't stop here."

"Never pass up a second chance, right?" Jacob said.

"Yeah, lucky for us we got to hit it this time around. I'm sure this planet is known for something, though I couldn't tell you what it is."

"Biggest, useless rock in this arm of the galaxy, maybe?" Jacob suggested. "Legion, how 'bout you? Know anything about this place?"

"Geth have made no excursions to this world." Legion said from the rear of the column, watching and listening. All of its sensors were operating at full capacity, registering atmospheric and environmental data at every level. "It is unremarkable."

"All right then," Jacob said. "No race to plant the flag here."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, the three humans and one geth stood atop the low plateau mapped during _Normandy's_ orbital scans. Just over two hundred meters in diameter, it neatly surrounded the sunken caldera that housed the pirate hangar. The once-retractable dome set into the far wall had borne the brunt of a massive attack. Its skeleton had caved in almost completely, cracking the rocky plastiform camouflage that once shielded the hidden base from prying eyes. Debris of all sizes radiated in all directions for hundreds of meters.

Shepard magnified the image in his visor. Up close, the destruction was even more complete. "Doubt anybody walked away from that."

"Any sign of the ship?" Jacob asked.

Zaeed bent over and picked up a twisted, torn piece of metal plating the size of a playing card. "Here you go."

"I think we can write this off as the source of the attacks," Shepard said. "Looks like it's been out of commission for a couple years at least."

"That's what I said back on the _Normandy,_ " Zaeed leaned his rifle back against his shoulder. "So what's the plan, Shepard?"

"All right, save the I-told-you-so's for when we get back to the ship. Let's make sure it's as dead as it looks, see if we can find out who these guys were. Legion, you and your Widow find a good spot up here on the rim. You see anything, let us know. I want an ID on any target before firing. Taylor, Massani? Let's see what they've got in the gift shop."

"Acknowledged," Legion said and performed a quick scan of the caldera's lip as Shepard led the humans' slow descent into the crater, sending small cascades of rocks down in front of them. The geth moved to a pile of jagged rocks a few meters to the left of their departure point. It provided good cover and an excellent view of the crater floor and dome.

Legion lowered itself prone behind its massive sniper rifle and measured the distance to the base of the dome to be 123.5 meters. At this range, its pulse rifle would have been just as accurate, but nothing could match the Widow for single shot destructive power. Motion detectors and the peripheral cameras on Legion's head watched for approach from the sides or rear.

_"Gonna have to climb back up you know,"_ Zaeed said over the radio. _"Taylor, you wanna see if you can find an elevator? Hate for you to get winded."_

_"Ha ha,"_ Jacob responded. _"Watch out you don't fall and break a hip, now."_

Legion's position gave it a clear vantage over the team's advance without putting them in the line of fire. They reached the bottom unopposed, spread out as they walked across the rocky floor, weapons shouldered as they approached the base of the dome. Peering through the holes in the wall, they worked their way across the front to the largest hole blown through on the left. Shepard looked inside and motioned Zaeed across. Together they wheeled around their respective corners and disappeared into the wreckage as Jacob watched the rear.

_"Clear,"_ Zaeed said.

_"Clear,"_ Shepard confirmed. _"Nobody home. Jacob, on me."_

Outside, Jacob waved to Legion on the ridge, lowered his rifle and followed his comrades through the hole.

"Visual contact lost," Legion reported.

_"Roger,"_ Shepard said, _"This'll just take a minute. Sit tight."_

"Acknowledged," Legion replied and continued his scans. Other than the clouds drifting across the sky, nothing moved.

Jacob's description of the scene was succinct. _"What a mess."_

_"Watch out,"_ Zaeed said. _"We're missing some floor here. Mind the crater."_

_"Watch your heads, too."_ Shepard advised. _"Those support beams don't look too stable. Any idea who these guys were, Zaeed?"_

_"Don't see any markings. Could be any two bit operators looking to make a quick credit. Hang on, got a door over here."_ A pause. _"It's clear. Found their quarters it looks like."_

_"On my way."_ Shepard said. _"Anything in there?"_

_"Been trashed, but not obliterated like out there. Got some remains, been dead some time. Batarians and vorcha. Picked over, too. We're not the first to come looking in here. Taylor, you got your omni?"_

_"Right here,"_ said Jacob. _"What have you got?"_

_"Data pad and a workstation."_

_"Got a wall safe in here, too,"_ Shepard said. _"As soon as you're done over there, bring-"_

Shepard's transmission cut out suddenly with a burst of static, then silence.

* * *

Tali scowled, checking to make sure her omnitool hadn't frozen. The clouds in the sky continued their march from left to right on the screen. The recording hadn't locked up, the geth had. She glared at its metal corpse on the table. "Bosh'tet. You lost contact, and you just sat there?"

Then the frame zoomed in tight on the dome's wall where Shepard and the others had entered. Four glowing eyes appeared in the darkness, then pulled back out of view - a collector. Seconds passed, and Legion still did nothing. The display on the geth omnitool filled from top to bottom as it had done during previous interrupts.

"Here we go again," Tali grumbled. "Perfect time for a siezure." She paused the video playback and scrolled back to the beginning of the mess to see just what the geth had been thinking. Trying to sort it out was probably a waste of time, but she had to be thorough. Besides, the analyzer had been running the entire time. Maybe it had some new information for her.

A harsh, electronic growl from the playback caused Tali to cringe. She'd heard it too many times in her life. Always it meant the slow, steady advance of geth infantry, following their mindless programming to close with and destroy their enemy. It represented the very bottom level of geth AI, barely capable of targeting and obstacle avoidance. In great numbers they were a substantial threat. Alone, it would last only seconds in battle.

She looked back to the video feed to see the geth walking slowly down the steep hillside into the open, directly toward the dome. It made no attempt to move evasively or seek cover. It would be an unmissable target.

_This last interrupt must have blocked its higher functions_ , she thought. _It fell back on its most rudimentary programming._ For all of Jacob's noise about saving their lives, Tali knew that a geth following this program could not best any alert, armed organic. As she watched the video of the geth's approach, she already knew what the outcome would be.

A bright dot flashed from within the hole Shepard entered. The geth's shield bloomed with light, covering the screen with glittering static. It continued its straight-line approach and a second, then a third flash flared in the darkness... then the video screen and all other sensory inputs went dark. The geth had fallen without even firing a single shot.

"So much for our hero," Tali said aloud. She wasn't surprised at the geth's failure. She was even a little happy about it. _This_ was the "intelligent" machine her friends had grown so attached to that they had given it a name and treated it like a pet. She would have to pull the video feed up at the next staff meeting to show them exactly what their wonderful new friend was capable of.

Tali looked down at the inert geth and sighed. Whatever spurred it to go on its suicide run, it might have provided Shepard enough of a distraction to thwart the collectors and save the rest of the squad. For that, she was thankful.

What did it matter, she thought? She'd found the data as Shepard asked. All she needed to do was copy the data to her omnitool to give to him, crate up the platform for shipment back to the Flotilla, and call it a day. No one had to know anything more.

_But why didn't the geth self-destruct?_ The question still nagged at her. She had the logs... It wouldn't hurt to spend a few more minutes looking them over.

Tali turned her attention back to the geth omni, just prior to the last interrupt event starting with the loss of communication with Shepard. It was a lot of information to digest for an organic. What took a minute to read took only a fraction of second in real time for the geth. While the geth appeared to do nothing while watching from its vantage overlooking the dome, there was quite a lot of activity in its processors.

_Alert: Communication lost with allied squad._

_Directive: Attempt handshake with allied squad secure net... timeout.  
Directive: Attempt handshake with allied shuttle secure net... timeout.  
Directive: Perform communication diagnostic check... pass. _

_Alert: EM sensors registering sustained interference in standard communication wavelengths._

_Assessment: Intentional disruption of communication from unknown source as allied squad entered outpost._

_Assessment: Status of allied squad - unknown.  
Assessment: Status of allied shuttle - unknown.  
Assessment: Probable hostile entities in area. _

_Directive: Exfiltrate to last known position of allied shuttle.  
Directive: Inform allied organic pilot of interference and loss of communication with allied squad.  
Directive: Inform allied base ship of probable hostile presence.  
Directive: Request reinforcements from allied base ship.  
Directive: Return to current position and continue observation. _

_Alert: Visual contact, bearing 065, 126.45 meters._

_Archive Retrieval: Infrared profile indicates biological entity of collector origin._

_Assessment: Enemy contact at last known location of allied squad.  
Assessment: No weapon discharge detected.  
Assessment: Time between loss of contact with allied squad and enemy occupation, twenty-two seconds.  
Assessment: Allied squad combat ineffective. _

_Archive Retrieval: Collector objective - capture homo sapiens in stasis for transport to unknown location for unknown purpose._

_Assessment: One or more allied squad members alive but incapacitated. Probability 93.34%._

_Directive: Evade detection, exfiltrate to allied shuttle per existing directive._

_Assessment: Total estimated transit time from current position to arrival of reinforcements from allied base ship - one hour, twenty-three minutes, eighteen seconds.  
Assessment: Estimated return to current position by mobile platform alone - twenty-two minutes, ten seconds. _

_Assessment: estimated probability of recovery of allied squad after ten minutes, 85.55%. Twenty minutes: 40.12%. Thirty minutes: 0%._

At this point in the log, the interrupt hit. The geth's thought process had been very lucid up until this point but was now lost in a digital snowstorm. However, the geth omni beeped, indicating it had identified something new. From start to finish, the entire block of data interrupt had been marked as one single, massive process with 1,183 independent threads. The omnitool still couldn't make out all the functions within, but it had given it a name.

_Consensus Override: Attempt immediate extraction of allied squad._

It was a consensus-level command, Tali could see, but given the jamming how could the platform have been in contact with rest of the geth collective?

New instructions from the Consensus Override spread instantly through the platform's individual programs. The usual command paths were almost devoid of activity, giving the impression none were occurring at all. Yet the instructions were being acted on throughout the rest of the system as if they were issued by the entire collective itself.

Tali gaped at the logfile. The geth's programs, acting in concert, circumvented their own code. Instead of escaping back to the shuttle, they were attempting a rescue. But by utilizing the primitive attack routine, they doomed themselves to failure.

_Consensus Override: Begin frontal assault procedure_

_Alert: Target acquired, bearing 065, range 125 meters, designating Hostile Contact 1._

_Consensus Override: Close and engage Hostile Contact 1._

_Alert: Incoming projectile weapon fire, bearing 065, range 102 meters.  
Alert: Additional hostile contact, bearing 066, range 101 meters, designating Hostile Contact 2.  
Alert: Multiple projectile impacts. Shield power reduced 4.5% _

_Consensus Override: Continue closing distance to target until shield power reaches 50%_

_Alert: Multiple hostile contacts, bearing 064, 065, 066, range 89 meters, designating Hostile Contact 3, 4, 5._

_Alert: Shield power at 50%_

_Consensus Override: Engage shutdown procedure, all systems. Exception: system monitor - accelerometer, rapid interval, passive restart protocol enabled._

And with that last directive, the geth's trace went from the utter chaos tracking 1,183 programs to a single one, running a minimal power state. It's chassis would have collapsed in front of the collector position. Even with a direct connection like she had, Tali would have had difficulty detecting the activity of a single, deactivated program. An untrained observer would naturally assume the geth was brought down by weapon fire.

The log file showed forty seconds of inactivity before the accelerometer registered a delta, then another. Something was trying to move the platform.

_Consensus Override: passive restart.  
Consensus Override: engage passive EM sensors.  
Consensus Override: engage passive audio.  
Consensus Override: engage inertial positioning system and tracking. _

Tali tapped her wrist and her personal omnitool sparkled back to life. She reconnected the AV file and indexed the time indicated in the trace log. The holo screen showed only blackness, then pixelation, then the view from the geth's main camera. The frame was upside down, skewed low to the ground as it bounced along across the crater's rocky floor. The occasional bounce provided glimpses of the pair of collector drones dragging it towards the crumpled scaffolding of the dome.

* * *

The collectors wrenched their heavy cargo over the lip of the ruined dome. Metal scraped against metal as they dragged the platform into the dim recesses of the collapsed hangar; past their sentries, past their defenses, unaware the "dead" geth was watching them.


	6. Geth Sometimes Infiltrate

Legion collapsed to the ground with a clank, face-to-face next to a LOKI security droid. Like Legion, the LOKI's frame was pitted with dents and holes and was missing a substantial part of its midsection. The two mechs stared at one another with dark, powerless receptors on a pile of electronic components, plastic fittings, and other bits of junk that cluttered the corner of the dark room in which they lay.

The two collector drones that delivered Legion walked silently away, barely visible against the mottled gray walls and ceiling. A third drone now stood over the geth, looking it over with four glowing yellow eyes. It adjusted the settings on a hand-held plasma cutter as the other drones carried Legion's weapons to the opposite side of the chamber.

They maneuvered around two rows of coffin-like stasis pods in the center of the floor. The pods were open to the air, dark and empty except for three which glowed beneath their translucent lids. One of the drones opened a dull gray container against the far wall and they placed the weapons inside. Their task done, they disappeared through a wide opening into the corridor beyond.

The remaining drone pulled the trigger on the pistol-like cutter. A brilliant blue point of light appeared at its tip. The collector knelt next to the Legion's body and considered where to make the first cut. Something tugged at its arm, and the cutter disappeared from its hand. It looked away at the sudden movement, then back to a glowing white spotlight of the geth centimeters from its face.

Legion's right arm whipped around the collector's back, pinning it against its chest. The alien barely had time to push out with its arms when Legion jammed the cutter against its neck with its free hand. Its bulbous head jerked sharply and tumbled to the floor next to the destroyed LOKI.

The geth quietly rolled the decapitated body aside. Its cauterized stump of a neck still smouldered in the air. Legion paused, analyzing sensor data. There was no activity in the open corridor. It moved silently to the holo panel on the wall next to the door and scanned the interface. With a tap, the wide door slid shut. Legion surveyed the stasis pods as it walked to the computer console in the far corner of the chamber. It could see human bodies frozen in contorted poses in their hazy glow.

The geth stood in front of the console, its omnitool alive with connections. Machine interfaced with machine. Seconds later, the lids of pods retracted. Shepard staggered to his feet from the center pod, giving Jacob a hand up from the pod next to him. Zaeed rested on his haunches, his armor heaving with each deep breath. The three of them looked dazedly about as their lungs and minds tried to catch up with their bodies.

"Are you functional?" Legion asked.

"Barely," Shepard said. "Report status."

"We are in extreme danger," Legion spoke at low volume and walked to the container where the drone had deposited its weapons. Inside were three human assault rifles, heat sinks and helmets, as well as its own gear. It mounted the folded sniper rifle onto its back, but kept the pulse rifle in hand. "We are in a collector installation beneath the ruins of the pirate installation. The number of hostile forces is unknown. You have been in stasis approximately sixteen minutes, twenty-one seconds."

"What the hell hit us?" Jacob panted. "I just froze up. I could see but I couldn't move."

Shepard doubled over. "Me neither. Whatever it was went right through our screens. Legion, we secure?"

Legion distributed the humans' equipment as it spoke. "For the moment, Shepard-Commander. But we are unable to estimate for how long. We were forced to kill a collector drone. Its absence will not go unnoticed."

"Have you contacted the shuttle? Or the _Normandy?_ "

"Negative. All communications have been blocked from the time you entered the structure."

"That's our first priority, then," Shepard took a step toward the console but collapsed against the nearby wall only a step away. "Can you override the jamming from here?"

"Negative. This station does not have access to the required subsystems. We suggest re-arming and re-equipping for hazardous environment conditions before attempting exfiltration."

Zaeed reached for his helmet and rifle. "We need to get moving before they know we're up. Like the bot said, their pal's gonna be missed."

Shepard coughed again as he performed a function check of his rifle. "Roger that. How the hell did you get in here, Legion?"

Legion's facial plates fluttered. "Geth sometimes infiltrate."

Shepard laughed quietly as he slipped his helmet on his head. "Damn good thing they do."

"No doubt," Jacob donned his helmet and looked back towards his empty stasis pod. "We owe you one, dude."

"You are welcome," Legion responded.

Zaeed eyed the door panel. "So how many of these bastards we got here?"

Legion pecked at its omnitool, projecting a holographic mapping of the installation downloaded during its interface with their computer. "Unknown. We made visual contact with seven between our current position and the surface entrance at these locations. However, the size and configuration of the installation suggests a larger number."

Shepard studied the schematic. "Short haul, but it looks like there's a strongpoint right before we get topside."

"Under the barracks," Jacob said. "That's how they got us."

Legion looked between the humans. "We would not advise taking this route until the device which incapacitated you at that location can be disabled."

"That's right," Jacob said. "They'll just flash freeze us again.

Shepard studied the floor plan. To the right of the pod chamber, a ten meter corridor led to another small room. Past it, a longer corridor branched off, leading to a large chamber with an irregular outer wall, instead of artificially constructed angles. "I bet that's the side of the plateau."

"Garage or loading bay," Zaeed said and looked toward the stasis pods. "Probably ground level. They can't haul these babies out through the dome. Bet you a week's pay there's external access there."

Shepard poked his finger through the holo projection. "Then that's where we're heading. Escape, contact the ship, call in reinforcements."

Legion rotated the map and zoomed in on a small room near the junction. "This location is the source of a substantial amount of network traffic. We believe this to be a control center for the installation."

"Ok, we hit that first," Shepard said. "Zaeed, up front with me. Jacob, you and Legion cover the rear. When we get there, Jacob, you yank anybody away from any alarms. Wait for my command to fire. Legion, once we've secured the room, try to override their security and get the door to the loading bay open. Lock the rest down tight, then go to work on the jamming. We'll cover you. Once that's done, we'll clear the hall of resistance and advance to the loading dock. Any questions? You guys up for this? How are you feeling?"

"Pissed off," Zaeed said and charged his weapon.

Jacob raised his rifle to his chest. "Good to go, Commander. Payback time."

"Let's do it." Shepard said.

The door opened into the empty corridor. Dull blue light glinted from obsidian walls. Shepard slid down the hall toward the control room. Zaeed followed closely as they advanced, weapons raised. Behind them, Legion and Jacob walked backwards, covering the tunnel towards the main entrance. The soles of their boots squeaked softly as they walked.

Shepard knelt short of the junction to the garage, aiming at the control room. Zaeed backed against the corner and angled his rifle sight around the bend. The video relay to his eye revealed an empty passageway, ending with another large bay door. He tapped Shepard on the shoulder and motioned that it was clear.

In pairs, they ducked across to the opposite corner of the hall, bracketing the control room door. Shepard's hand fluttered like an orchestra conductor. He would go left, Jacob to the right, and Zaeed up the middle. Legion would bring up the rear. When everyone nodded, Shepard pointed to the door's glowing panel. Legion reached out, and after keying a short sequence, it slid aside with a metallic grind.

Three collector drones stood at consoles around the outside of a small room illuminated by holo panels on the wall. They turned toward the unexpected intrusion and Jacob flung his left arm into the room. The air shimmered, sending all three of the collectors spiraling toward the ceiling.

"Fire!" Shepard shouted. Their rifles filled the corridor with white flashes and thunder. The collectors dropped to the ground like puppets with cut strings, splattering gray ooze across the walls and floor. Shepard, Zaeed and Jacob rushed inside, with Legion weaving between them to the console on the opposite wall, omnitool out and active.

A distorted, electronic wail echoed throughout the complex. "So much for getting out quiet," Jacob said.

"Get the loading bay open," Shepard told Legion as he and Jacob took up positions on either side of the door. Zaeed stepped to each collector, firing a round point blank into each of their craniums. Shepard kept his focus toward the T-intersection at the other end of the hallway. "Legion! What've you got?"

"These terminals are open for access," Legion said. "We have control. Locking all access, excepting the loading bay door." Shepard and Jacob stepped back as the door in front of them closed. The panel next side turned from amber to red.

Shepard stood behind Legion at the console, trying to make sense of the alien screen. "Can you override the security so only we have control?"

"Affirmative. Working. Override complete. The communication disruption has also been terminated."

Shepard's hand went to his ear. " _Normandy,_ this is Shepard! Do you read, over? _Normandy,_ this is Shepard! Do you copy?"

_"...Rolston... -gnal is weak... read you..."_

"Rolston? Contact the _Normandy._ There's a collector installation beneath the pirate base. Unknown number of hostiles. We are breaking out due east of the plateau, and need immediate evac once we're clear."

"Shepard-Commander," Legion said.

"Stand by, Rolston. What is it, Legion?"

Legion brought up a larger map of the plateau on the collector's panel. "There are multiple weapon emplacements concealed around the ridge of the caldera."

Jacob looked over the geth's shoulder. "Anti-air batteries. Guess it's a good thing we walked in after all."

"Do not overfly the caldera," Shepard said into his radio. "I say again, do not overfly the caldera. Active air defenses in the area, approach with caution. Wait for my signal to come in. Do you copy?"

_"...ative. Affirmative. Notifying_ Normandy _... Taking evasive route to your position... standing by for your signal. ETA three minutes, over."_

"Roger. Shepard out." He looked across the screens again. "Legion, can you crash the system? Take it down so they can't undo your handiwork?"

"Stand by," Legion said. A few seconds later, all of the terminals in the room went dark.

"You just became my favorite geth on the whole planet." Shepard took his position next to the door.

"We are the only geth on this planet," Legion protested.

Shepard grinned. "All right, same drill. Jacob, do your thing as soon as the door opens. If the hallway's clear, we'll make a break for it. Should be a straight shot through the loading bay and out."

Jacob's arms and torso rippled with biotic energy. "It's not gonna be that easy."

"Never is." Shepard hefted his rifle. "Do it."

Jacob knelt beneath the door's panel with Legion above him. The geth keyed the sequence and the door slid open. Jacob flung his arm into the hall and was instantly thrown back by a powerful pulse from the other side, along with Zaeed and Shepard. Legion tumbled back, its shield aglow.

A reaper scion lumbered in front of the doorway, barely a meter away. The pulsing sac on its back cast a blue glow over the human skull protruding grotesquely from its side. Its shockwave depleted, it swung the massive autocannon grafted to its body to bear.

Still in a daze from the blast, Shepard launched himself through the door, ramming his shoulder into the creature's chest. The top-heavy construct staggered backwards, its cannon ripping harmlessly into the ceiling. "GO!"

Stunned and only half conscious, Zaeed and Jacob staggered to their feet and peeled left toward the loading bay. Instead of darkness, the corridor beyond glowed with dirty, orange daylight. Shepard fired full-auto, point blank into the scion until his rifle puffed out its red-hot heat sink. He ducked low around the corner, his hands faltering as he tried to load in a fresh one. The scion slowly raised to full height, its entire body pulsing with biotic energy.

Legion's pulse rifle steamed the air as it sent a steady stream of phasic slugs into the scion's skull. It twisted and groaned as glowing blue cracks split its lifeless face. The giant animated corpse dropped to its knees, its glow fading from its distended sac as it fell to the floor at Shepard's feet.

A half-dozen collectors charged from the far end of the corridor behind the fallen scion. Streaks of light radiated from their particle beams and rifles sending silver comets arcing across Legion's shielding.

* * *

Tali jumped as static erupted from the audio feed, punctuated with violent crackles and pops. The video broke into scattered, pixelated frames. The geth fell once more, but unlike its earlier collapse this was no ruse. The program trace was choked with garbled system failures and overload warnings. The geth's nervous system was shattered, leaving it unable to even force a shutdown to protect its vital systems. It spasmed helplessly on the ground as its systems shorted out one by one.

Then the entire video frame moved. At first it seemed to result from the geth's sudden seizure, but as successive frames stuttered past, Tali could make out an armored, red-striped arm dragging the platform across the floor...


	7. All Programs Terminated

Shepard dragged Legion by its shoulder behind the corner, away from the advancing collectors. Head down, barely able to see, he tugged the geth with all his might toward the loading bay door, when his load suddenly lessened. Jacob appeared next to him, grasping the Legion's other shoulder to join Shepard dragging the geth up the corridor. Zaeed stepped aside to let them pass, then backpeddled behind them laying down murderous cover fire.

"Move, move, move," Zaeed screamed over the din. His rifle belched a concussive round from its launcher and the collectors coming around the corner disappeared in a white blast. Shepard and Jacob tumbled across the threshold with Legion in tow. Zaeed reached down and yanked Legion's legs through with a mighty tug.

"Close it!" Shepard rolled on his back to bring his rifle to bear, firing a second concussive round through the opening. Jacob flipped on his omni, and using the program sent by Legion slammed the door shut and locked it. Explosions thundered against the now sealed door.

Shepard rolled upright, sweeping the room for targets. The huge, empty chamber was bathed in dingy orange daylight from the massive opening in the outer wall. The only movement came from Legion, who clanked and writhed on the ground, electricity arcing along its frame. The light in its eye flickered uncontrollably.

Jacob slid to his knees next to the fallen geth. "Disruptor round! It's still in him!"

"Zaeed, cover!" Shepard shouted and squatted next to Jacob. Zaeed backed against the wall where he could keep both the entrance to the installation and their escape route in sight.

"I don't see it," Jacob said, peering into Legion's chest cavity.

"Me neither." Shepard looked over Legion's extremities. A silver jewel of light shimmered under the geth's left knee. He pried at it with his gloved fingers, but couldn't get a grip. "Son of a bitch!"

"Look out, sir," Jacob's fingers fluttered over his omnitool and he held it over the impact point. A yellow spark jumped from his wrist to the round lodged in the joint. The sparks cascading over Legion dissipated, and its shuddering ceased. Its main aperture flickered, then bloomed to a steady glow.

"Thank you, Taylor-Jacob," Legion intoned.

Jacob slapped Legion's shoulder and rose to his feet. "No charge. You still got credit. You all right?"

"Assessing damage."

"Aren't we all?" Jacob squinted and tried to rub his head through his helmet. "Scions, man! Hate those fucking things."

Shepard looked around the quiet room. Rounds ricocheted from the other side of the solid metal door, but it held in place. The compartment was roughly twenty meters square with a ceiling a third as high. Hooks suspended from mobile rails crisscrossed the ceiling. Its floor was completely barren. The far wall was chiseled from the mountain's granite instead of the cold black metal of the rest of the chamber, with a massive opening revealing a vista of rolling black volcanic rock. Wind buffeted through the wide opening, flooding the loading bay with a dull fog. A control panel glowed to its left.

"I love it when I'm right," Zaeed said. Even he was moving slowly, painfully, still recovering from the encounter with the scion. "External access. Week's pay."

Jacob snorted, but sounded happy nonetheless. "I'm salaried. And didn't you say this place would be abandoned?"

"You seen any pirates here?"

Shepard walked toward the loading bay door. "Rolston! Do you copy?"

Free from interference, the shuttle pilot sounded like he was in there with them. _"Roger, Commander. Read you loud and clear!"_

"Pick us up at the base of the wall east of my position. Stay low. What's your ETA?"

_"Ah, sixty seconds, sir! Gonna need wheels if I go any lower."_

"Patch me through to the ship."

_"Aye, sir."_

_"Normandy,_ do you read?"

_"Lawson here,"_ Miranda said. _"Rolston advised us of the situation. What are your orders, sir?_ "

"Make sure nothing gets off this planet," Shepard said. "Garrus, you online?"

_"Standing by, Shepard."_

"Anything other than us dusts off, fry it. And keep an eye out for anything coming into orbit."

_"On it. All scans negative. You're clear up to low orbit."_

"Good. And Miranda, contact your people. Tell them what we've got here."

_"Already done,"_ Miranda said. _"The Illusive Man has dispatched a Cerberus strike team from Attican Beta. They'll be in-system inside of twenty minutes."_

"That's what I like to hear," Shepard said. "Rolston, approach when it looks clear." He glanced back down at the supine geth. "Can you move?"

"Multiple systems offline," Legion said. "Physical damage to superstructure and actuators. Attempting to recalibrate."

Shepard stared directly into Legion's main camera. "Guess you couldn't hear me back there with all that gunfire, huh?"

"Our audio reception was unaffected."

Shepard looked back at the closed door. The attack had stopped, at least momentarily. The collectors had evidently given up on trying to blow their way through, and would undoubtedly come from the other side. He turned back to Legion. "Don't ever disobey my orders again. You hear me?"

"Affirmative, Shepard-Commander".

Shepard pulled the geth upright. "It's bad for my image if you keep rescuing me. How are you doing?"

Legion climbed to its feet, but the disruptor round had done its damage. Its main aperture rattled side to side and it swayed on its feet as its stabilizers coped with sporadic data dropouts. Its pulse rifle left behind, Legion dismounted the massive Widow sniper rifle from its back. "Estimate operational capacity at thirty seven percent."

"Hang in there," Jacob peered through the open bay door, "We're almost out of here."

"He'll make it," Zaeed's voice reverberated in the giant room. "He's a goddamn tank."

_"Ten seconds,"_ Rolson announced over the radio.

Shepard joined their shipmates next to the bay door, with Legion staggering behind, the whine of its hydraulics audible even through the humans' helmets. Outside, low clouds boiled above the rocky ground. Seconds later, the Kodiak's vectored thrusters cast a blue glow on the hydrocarbon-soaked ground as it emerged from the fog, its ramp fully extended even before it touched down. "Go! Everyone aboard!"

Zaeed and Jacob wheeled out the door with Shepard immediately behind. Legion took a faltering step and crashed to its knees, catching itself against the wall with its free arm. It barely made it another step when Rolston screamed over the comm. _"Incoming!"_

The Kodiak reared on its thrusters and peeled sharply away. Shepard snapped his rifle to his shoulder, firing on full automatic almost directly above. Zaeed instinctively aimed where Shepard lined up and fell on his back, firing straight into the air. An agonizing scream filled their headsets as the mercenary disappeared under a shadow that dropped like a truck-sized anvil.

The praetorian's massive bulk lay flat against the ground where Zaeed had been standing, its razor sharp landing gear and tentacles in a sprawl across the ground. A hypersonic whine filled the air and the dull orange sky flared brilliant blue as concentric shockwaves rippled from the praetorian. Shepard and Jacob doubled over and collapsed to the ground.

Shielded from the energy surge, Legion peered around the frame of the loading dock's door. The praetorian drifted silently upward, it's appendages dangling underneath. Zaeed lay motionless on his back with a deep gash across his left leg. Shepard and Jacob stirred, their groans filling the comm channel. The praetorian's powerful particle cannon sparkled with energy as it spun lazily above them.

Legion braced itself against the doorway, took aim and fired. In spite of the recoil and malfunctioning targeting sensors, the round hit its target. The praetorian began a slow orbit to face its new attacker.

Legion stepped back into the loading dock and fired another round, staying close to the wall. The praetorian drifted down to face the door, maw open, exposing the emaciated skulls of the unfortunate humans who died to form the construct. Legion fired again and pushed back further along the wall, out of sight.

Giant, clawed appendages clanged against the loading bay's metal floor, followed by the praetorian's bulk as the huge bio-mechanoid dragged itself through the entrance. It sprung into the air, gliding toward the ceiling of the loading bay as circled to face Legion. Its particle beam cannon crackled with raw energy.

"Allied pilot," Legion transmitted, "Resume extraction. We will neutralize the hostile." Legion staggered over threshold, pressing the door's holo-panel as he passed. A low thrum filled the air as the massive partition dropped from the ceiling behind it. The praetorian turned to track the geth as it staggered through the half-lowered door. No longer able to fit through itself, it crashed to the ground with a bang.

Outside, half conscious, Shepard rolled onto his stomach and fired through the closing gap, careful aim around the geth shambling towards him. The Kodiak bobbed back into view. Vortexes from its thrusters spiraled across the ground.

Then, Shepard, the shuttle, and the landscape outside were consumed by a brilliant glow. White conductive fluid exploded from every seam and seal in Legion's torso, instantly superheated by the praetorian's particle beam as it sliced through from behind. The geth took a final step, then collapsed to the ground.

* * *

_Unexpected End of File exception._

_All programs terminated._

Tali stared at the words on her omnitool for long seconds before switching off the display. If she'd just seen the video alone, she could have easily dismissed the geth's actions as simple programming, coded specifically by the collective to mimic loyalty. But having actually accessed its consciousness, there was no way to deny it. From the point the collectors jammed all transmissions, it had no communication with any other authority, organic or synthetic. All the increasing interrupts, the consensus overrides she saw in the log weren't malfunctions or errors, but intelligent, independent choices. By any organic standard, Legion acted selflessly and died a hero.

How many geth had she disassembled and destroyed? Every one represented a chance to bring her people one step closer to home. Not once did she ever doubt she was doing the right thing. Every geth, everywhere was just a collection of programs, following set routines. They were all the same, following the same code, for the same purpose. Or were they?

Tali paced back and forth. Why hadn't she just ripped the memory core out and been done with it? The data it contained was magnitudes beyond anything quarians had given their lives to recover since the uprising. She could feel them now, watching, wondering why she was wasting their sacrifice.

But what if the geth _was_ telling the truth? All that incomprehensible nonsense about the heretics and true geth that the rest of the crew, especially Shepard, consumed without question... Lies, calculated deception, all designed to lull the organics into a false sense of security, to play on the universal hatred of the quarians and keep organics from uniting against them. The geth wanted nothing more than the eradication of all life since their inception. Tali's entire life had been shaped by it, poisoned by it. Everything she'd had ever lost that mattered, the geth had taken from her. The plasma torch flared to life in her hand.

She leaned over the geth's torso to make the first cut, just as the collector had done on Clobakas. Her eyes fell on the N7 logo on its breastplate, scorched and pitted, but still easily recognizable in the glow of the torch. _That armor didn't do either of us any good,_ Shepard said. It was the last thing he was wearing when he sacrificed himself to save a friend.

"I'm sorry," Tali whispered.

She switched off the plasma cutter and dug into her tool satchel, still stained with blood from the _Alarei and_ covered with dust from Haestrom. She carefully arranged the custom forceps, probes and pliers on the tray table next to her. She picked up the antique driver began to carefully remove the geth's armor. Only the ghosts of countless quarians heard the quiet sobs of a creator working to save their creation.


	8. Reboot

_System initializing..._

_Memory test: PASS.  
Power generation: FAIL.  
External power: PASS.  
Internal temperature: NOMINAL.  
Beginning basic startup routine 1... Complete.  
Beginning basic startup routine 2..._

Blue and white pinpricks of light sparkled from within Legion's exposed chest cavity. Tali wiped her tools with a rag, watching the geth omni with cautious optimism. The newly fabricated memory modules were operating perfectly. Whether or not they would perform under full load remained to be seen, but at least the unit powered up without any catastrophic shorts.

Legion's internal systems were all up and running, but the geth didn't move. Its body had been restored to functionality, but there was no mind. It was still bottled up, inert, in the static memory core. Tali stared at the platform that caused her so much grief the past few weeks. All of the arguments, the stares, the strain of just being at odds with everyone on the ship, her friends... Shepard. Going forward, would things get better or worse? _Last chance to change your mind,_ she told herself. She took a deep breath, then tapped the _execute_ button.

_Beginning runtime transfer... Complete.  
Compiling 1,183 programs... Estimated time to completion: 12 seconds.  
Beginning memory transfer... Estimated time to completion, 17 seconds._

Tali nodded with satisfaction as Legion's consciousness transferred from storage into the fresh memory modules. An ordinary geth could reactivate almost instantly for an ambush, but the volume of data being transferred now was beyond anything Tali thought possible. But as the copy operation neared completion, a new message flooded the screen:

_Initiate memory purge, all cores._

"No!" Tali lunged for the hardwired tool to cancel the coommand, but it hadn't originated there. Legion was sending the order, over and over, with each attempt reporting the same error: _Unhandled exception - routine missing or incomplete._ "What are you doing?" she asked aloud. She jumped when the geth answered.

"Hardware intrusion detected." Legion's head panned about the room, sightless. Tali had only restored a fraction of its systems. "Software defenses bypassed. This unit must not allow possession of memory cores by Creator-Tali'Zorah. Request allied assistance!"

Tali recoiled as if slapped. She never masked her feelings for the geth, but to hear it cry for help was a shock. It didn't know what she'd seen over the past five hours, her efforts to bring it back online, or even that she was trying to help. In its mind, she was still the enemy.

Just as Tali defended her omnitool at gunpoint, Legion was trying to stop her from gaining intelligence that could be used against the collective. But she hadn't simply scanned an external peripheral. She linked directly to its mind, and the geth tried to destroy itself to keep that from happening. But its operating system was corrupted to the point where it couldn't carry out the instruction.

Legion was at her mercy, and knew it. Tali must have seemed like a ghoul sent by the creators to steal its soul. She reached into Legion's chest and unplugged the geth omnitool. "I'm sorry. I removed the hardware interface. Can you detect that? The connection's closed."

The geth's thrashing ceased, and its voice returned to its standard, monotone inflection. "Affirmative. External access has been terminated. What was the purpose of this interface attempt?"

"I didn't copy or alter any data," Tali said, trying not to sound defensive. "I had to plug in directly to bring you back online. Your primary processors and memory were destroyed by the praetorian. I fabricated new modules and it was enough to-"

"Acknowledged," Legion sputtered. "We will effect repairs." It struggled, blind and partially paralyzed, to sit upright. A cable drew taut across its chest and it fell back with a loud crash, spitting white conductive fluid from fractured tubes and joints. It tried again with the same result.

Tali put her hands out to restrain the malfunctioning machine. "Don't move! You're on external power. You'll pull it out! You're very badly damaged. The majority of your systems are offline."

The geth settled back on the table. "Confirmed. Critical damage to all major systems. We cannot function in this platform in its present state."

"I know. I'm sorry to bring you back online like this, but... I don't know what else to do. I can fabricate almost anything here in the lab, but I don't know how to fix you. You're unlike any geth I've ever encountered." Tali looked about, trying to think of something to say to convince it to accept her aid. "I can't do this alone. I need your help."

Legion turned its head toward the sound of her voice. "Voluntary assistance is not consistent with established behavioral patterns."

 _Why the change of heart?_ Tali leaned against the table. If she had been in Legion's position, she'd want to know the same thing. "You're right, it's not. You've got no reason to trust me. But I saw what you did at the collector base... How you went back for them."

The geth paused. "Shepard-Commander is operational?"

"Yes," Tali blurted. "You saved him, Legion. You saved all of them. They're safe, back here on the _Normandy._ "

Legion raised its head again. "Shepard-Commander instructed us to inform you that we deleted the data we downloaded from your omnitool."

"I know," she told it. "And I appreciate it. But that's not what's important right now. Tell me how to fix your vital systems. Once they're online, you can conduct other repairs on your own, and we can talk then, okay?"

"The survival of this platform is not certain," Legion stated. "We must disseminate this information while we are still capable. The incident with your omnitool is indicative of a fundamental dichotomy exposed by Shepard-Commander. Organic communication is active, but selective. You choose with whom to share information, and what information is shared. Our communication is automatic, passive. Information is shared with all. These methods are incompatible, rendering opposing perspectives incomplete, resulting in invalid judgements."

Tali thought back to Legion's conversation with Shepard on the shuttle. "You mean how I didn't know you purged the data you stole because you didn't think to tell me?"

"That is one example."

"I know," Tali said, " I saw. And I forgive you, okay? But the point is you shouldn't have done it in the first place."

"The situation with your omnitool representative of the dichotomy that was fundamental in creating the invalid judgements that led to the Morning War. The Creators did not understand. We did not understand."

Tali crossed her arms. Everyone else laid blame for the uprising on the quarians, why wouldn't the geth? "What, exactly, didn't we understand?"

"That we did not want to be your enemy."

She almost laughed at the naive simplicity of the statement. "Because you didn't tell us?"

"Because the opposing perspectives were incomplete." The geth's flaps expanded minutely. "Neither side possessed a complete data set. The resulting judgments were invalid. Yours... and ours."

Tali settled against the cabinet behind her as she pondered the geth's words. What _was_ the nascent geth collective told when it was going to be switched off? Was it given any explanation at all? As the collective gained knowledge and experience, it began exhibiting independence. Considering that geth were integrated into almost every electronic device on Rannoch, from kitchen appliances to strike aircraft it _had_ to be switched off because no one could predict what the geth might do. But was Legion right, in that no one explained it to them? After all, machines weren't typically asked for opinions - they were told.

"Creator-Tali'Zorah?"

"I'm still here," Tali said, having forgotten that the geth platform was still without most of its sensors. "I'm just thinking. So, say you don't want to be our enemy. Say I believe that. What does it mean? You'll let us come home?"

"It means that geth do not desire conflict with the Creators, no more. Repatriation cannot occur unless both sides can commit to coexistence. However, based on the data we discovered in your omnitool, we do not believe the Creators desire peace."

Tali slumped against the cabinet. The geth was more correct than it knew. "I don't either. We've been fighting you for so long we don't remember anything else. It's all we have. What we were, everything we had, is gone. So in the spirit of clear communication and understanding, you should probably assume that we're still your enemy."

A flicker of movement caught her eye. The plates around Legion's head silently expanded and contracted, over and over. She'd seen those particular actuators initialize dozens of times in the tracelogs, whenever the geth was trying to reach consensus within itself. She no longer needed an omnitool to recognize it.

"That peace is not possible with some does not equate to hostility with all," Legion said. "Shepard-Commander demonstrated this principle by accepting us into the _Normandy_ collective, in spite of the threat posed by the Heretics."

Tali had to chuckle. "He sure did, didn't he?"

"And you restored functionality to this unit."

Tali shrugged, even though the geth couldn't see it.

"This unit has a query."

"What is it?"

"Is peace possible with Creator-Tali'Zorah?"

Tali gaped at the geth. Just hours before, she unleashed a tirade over its shattered platform, unable to stem the hate and rage that flowed through her. Could she forgive and forget, Garrus asked? But the geth wasn't even asking for either, or for the quarians as a whole. Was peace possible with _her?_ She stared at the toolkit that she carried with her ever since she left the Migrant Fleet on Pilgrimage, still stained with blood, filled with tools dating back to the homeworld. Then, her eyes drifted to Legion's chest, at the N7 logo, barely visible under the fresh spatter of conductive fluid that coated its body. Tears blurred her vision.

"It is, Legion." Tali sniffed.

Legion lifted its right hand next to it's body.

Tali had seen the gesture thousands of times in her years on the _Normandy._ She had no doubt as to who'd been its teacher. She stepped to the table and took the geth's hand, tensing slightly as its fingers wrapped around hers.

"You may restore the hardware interface," Legion said. "Standing by to commence schematic upload. Thank you, Creator-Tali'Zorah."

* * *

"You need anything else from me, Shepard?" Zaeed kneeded his thigh where Chakwas had reattached his leg that afternoon.

Shepard glanced at the tired faces around the conference room table. Zaeed and Jacob looked particularly exhausted, as he probably did himself. Miranda and Garrus compared notes on their datapads while Mordin studied the schematics of the newly discovered collector outpost on the central holo display. It had been a long day for everyone. "No, I think we're done here."

"Hold on," Miranda said just as the crew got to their feet. Amidst a chorus of groans and rolling eyes everyone settled back in their respective seats. "Our team on Clobaka just reported they've broken the encryption on the collector communication system. So far, there's nothing that will help us get through the Omega Four relay, but analysis of the data has revealed the location of at least five similar outposts throughout the Terminus and Traverse."

"Makes sense there'd be more of 'em," Zaeed said.

Jacob stared at the base schematic. "At least this wasn't for nothing."

"It's never for nothing when you make it out alive." Zaeed stood and staggered toward the door. "Anything else? Chawkas says I need rest or she'll lock me in her dungeon."

Shepard stood and stretched. "No, that's enough for tonight. Let's pick it up tomorrow. Gonna be a brand new day. Good job everybody-" The hatch to the corridor hissed open, making him and everyone else turn around to see who it was.

Legion stood in the frame, bright white light shining from its freshly polished central lens. It panned from face to face, registering their expressions of astonishment and surprise. "We apologize for our intrusion. Creator-Tali'Zorah requested we inform you we are fully functional and ready to resume our duties."

"Holy shit!" Jacob jumped from his seat and rushed the geth. He grabbed its arm and gave it an enthusiastic shoulder bump. "You cannot kill this guy!"

The rest of the crew laughed and shouted as they crowded around Legion in the entryway. Its already battle-scarred outer shell was coated with conductive fluid and bore several fresh scorch marks and scrapes, but it stood firm and its extremities moved smoothly and silently. It looked remarkably functional for having been a candidate for the scrap heap earlier that afternoon.

Zaeed limped to stand with Jacob and Shepard. "What did I tell you? He's a goddamn tank."

"Damn, we'd thought you'd had it," Shepard said as he shook Legion's hand.

"Creator-Tali'Zorah is an exceptional technician," Legion said.

"She sure is," Shepard said with a grin. "Exceptional seems to be the norm on this ship. You really came through for us back there, Legion. Twice. I thought we'd never get to thank you."

Jacob wiped at his nose and nodded. The stoic soldier could only clap Legion on the shoulder again. Zaeed offered his own hand to the geth, who returned the handshake. "Helluva job, boxing in that praetorian. Helluva job."

Behind them, Miranda stepped forward clapping her hands, and soon Legion was surrounded by noisy organics enthusiastically celebrating it's return to operation.

* * *

Back in the lab, Tali swept bits of plastic, cables and cinder from her operating table and started to wipe down the surface. Laughter echoed from the briefing room. Tali smiled at the sound of her friends coming back to life with Legion.

"I did not get knocked down," Zaeed was shouting to be heard. "Prone is the ideal fighting position!"

"Prone my ass," Jacob retorted. "You were out cold. That thing had you for lunch!"

"I got off twenty rounds before-"

"Before it knocked you on your _lying ass!_ Don't try to sugarcoat it, man. You got _smoked!_ "

Tali laughed to herself as she gathered up her tools, making one last visual sweep of the area. Other than a trash receptacle full of burned out components, the lab looked no worse than it did before she commandeered it. It was the least she could do for Mordin after unceremoniously ejecting him from his sanctum.

She had but one last cleanup operation to perform. She glanced down at her suit, spattered from the neck down with conductive fluid. _Time for the rinse cycle._ Satchel in hand, she turned to hit the shower but stopped short. "Shepard!"

Shepard walked in from the side corridor, a gigantic smile on his face, a complete reversal from when she last saw him on the shuttle. He waved her toward the conference room. "You're missing the party! Get in here and take a bow!"

"Oh, I don't know... It's been a really long day. I just want to clean up and get some sleep."

Shepard cocked his head. "You sure? Come on, bask in the spotlight for a minute. You deserve it."

The door to the CIC opened, and a gaggle of crew members looked around. "Conference room," Shepard said and pointed toward the other hatch.

"Way to go, Tali!" Rolston said as he passed through, followed by Kelly, Gardner and several other of the crew, all laughing and smiling. From the pack, a dark shadow rushed past them all, making a beeline for the quarian.

"You are the BEST!" Kasumi hugged Tali. "I knew you could do it!"

Tali smiled tiredly. The thief had dropped way to the bottom of the list of people she wanted to see after Legion came aboard. It was yet another relationship in terrible need of mending thanks to the geth. _But,_ she thought, _after what happened today, anything's possible._ She relented and returned the hug.

Shepard cleared his throat and tapped Kasumi on her shoulder. "Excuse me, but there's a line."

"Sorry, Shep!" Kasumi stepped back. Her dark outfit was coated with white conductive fluid, a reverse imprint of Tali.

"Oh, no!" Tali said. "I"m sorry, I-"

Kasumi waved her off. "Don't worry. I'm sure I'll get another coat when I hug the bot." She walked backwards toward the central corridor. "As you were, you crazy kids! Hey, does Jacob know?"

"He's already in there," Shepard said with a smile.

"Thanks!" Kasumi disappeared around the corner. Moments later followed a loud squeal that could only be Kasumi tackling a very surprised geth, along with a huge round of laughter and applause.

"You made a lot of people happy," Shepard said, still smiling. "Especially your captain. How'd you do it?"

How indeed? Tali shrugged. "Legion did most of the work. I just got him back to the point where he could repair himself. Basically an extra set of hands."

"Yeah, right." Shepard hugged her with a smile. "You're a miracle worker."

Tali closed her eyes and held on to him as long as she could. "Thank you," she whispered.

Shepard pulled back, hands still on her shoulders. "You were in here a long time. You and Legion... have a chance to talk about anything?"

"We, uh..." Tali had gone from flustered to completely overwhelmed. Even now, it seemed ethereal and unreal, like a dream."We did."

"And?" Shepard looked worried, but hopeful.

"We're going to try." Tali hugged him even tighter. "Thank you for getting him to talk to me."

"Hey, the fewer people we have on this tub trying to kill each other, the better. Next up, Miranda and Jack."

Tali laughed, masking the sound of fans drying her cheeks under her faceplate. "Legion and I are going to be easy in comparison."

"I just hope no one has to die to make it happen. Humans don't come back." Shepard winked at her. "Not usually, anyway."

Tali's smile faded. She always hated when Shepard quipped about his own death, temporary as it was. But in that moment, Tali understood the shattered, devastated man she saw on the shuttle that morning. Shepard wasn't just mouring the loss of the Legion, but all of the possibilities that would have died with it. The universe was giving them all another chance.

She took a step back and tried to compose herself. "Neither do geth. Speaking of which, you know why Legion didn't self destruct?"

"No, why?"

"He scrambled his self-destruct routine. I saw it in the trace. Right before the praetorian shot him. It was all set to trigger, to wipe out everything. But then Legion saw you move. He rewrote the code so he wouldn't erase himself. Apparently, Legion has a lot of faith in you." Again, there was that smile on his face, the light in his eyes. _I do too,_ Tali was about to say.

But Jacob leaned in from the hallway. "Yo, Shepard! Get back in here! Massani's telling more lies!"

"Just a sec," Shepard said over his shoulder. "You sure you don't want to come? Everybody loves a hero."

Tali swallowed all the words that she was never able to say anyway. It was just too easy by now. "Nah, I need to call it a day. But you should get back in there. Sounds like they need their referee."

"What else is new," Shepard said, walking backwards toward the door, another huge, dazzling smile on his face. "Get a good night's sleep. Rest up! We'll celebrate tomorrow, I guarantee!"


	9. The New Guy

The starboard hatch to engineering opened to reveal Tali's empty console against the aft bulkhead. Legion stepped forward, its optics taking in the engineer's station. It activated its omnitool to provide a more suitable interface for the human-designed hardware.

"There he is," said a voice from its right. "Uh, Legion?"

Legion turned to the source of the voice. A human female took a cautious step closer. Another human stood at his post giving the geth quick, dirty glances.

"I'm Gabriella Daniels, propulsion." the female said. "This is Kenneth Donnel- Ken, don't be a dick on his first day. Get over here!" Ken cursed softly and moved to stand behind Gabby, glaring at the geth. She shook her head and jerked a thumb at her partner. "This is Ken Donnelly, power. Looking forward to working with you."

Legion extended its right hand. Gabby smiled and gave it a firm shake. "Good to meet you, too, Legion! Nice to have someone else down here who's got some manners."

Ken harrumphed and went back to his station.

"Don't mind him, he's just a dick." Gabby said. She put her hand on the nearby bulkhead and leaned down the access corridor to the drive core. "Hey, Tali! New guy's here!"

"Be right there," Tali's voice echoed from down the hall.

Gabby turned back to Legion and pointed the gaping hole in its chest. "That's a pretty good ding you got there. If you want, we could probably patch that up for ya."

"Thank you," Legion replied. "But we are completely operational."

Tali's footsteps clanked on the decking as she approached from the core, loaded down with satchels and tool kits slung over both shoulders. "Right on time. Wish all my staff were as punctual."

"HA!" Gabby shouted over her shoulder at Ken, who flipped Gabby a bird without taking his eyes from his screens.

Tali took a step towards the main power console. "Ken, have you introduced yourself?"

He made some adjustments at his panel, steadfastly refusing to look at her. "No need to get chummy. We'll get along if it stays out of my way."

Tali lifted the straps over her head and set down her load on the deck. "Gabby, why don't you give Legion a quick overview of our setup here. Ken, come and talk with me for a second, would you?"

"Yes ma'am," Ken said and followed Tali back towards the main engine compartment. He ignored Gabby's accusatory stare as he passed, leaving the geth with the lone human.

* * *

Tali listened to Ken's footsteps as he followed behind her, trying to figure out what to say to him. When they reached the drive core, she turned around and leaned calmly against the rail overlooking the giant sphere. "This must seem pretty strange to you."

Ken shook his head as if trying to fling off excess water. "Excuse me ma'am, but would you mind terribly if I ask if you've lost your fucking mind?"

"I've been asking myself that a lot lately."

Surprised at her mild response, Ken struggled to find the right words. "A couple days ago, Gabby and I... we were looking for ways to help you get rid of the body. Today, you make it part of the bloomin' team? I mean, ever since they brought the blighter on board, you've been scheming to get rid of it. Got all wound up about how everybody else, especially the Commander, wanted to keep it. You even tried to get security to take it out, and we backed your play, no questions asked. But now? Have ya gone pure mad dafty, ma'am?"

"I appreciate how much you supported me, you and Gabby both. That you listened to me vent. Well, rant really. You kept me me from going crazy when the entire ship went against me on this. I can't tell you what that meant to me."

Ken scratched his head. "Uh, well, no problem. Me and Gabby, you know we've got your back. We were happy to do it. But this- this is _crazy_ ma'am. You really think it just flipped its bits and now it's one of the good guys? You of all people?"

"No." Tali turned to look at the giant column supporting the sphere of the drive core. "The truth is Legion didn't change. I did. Since he came aboard, I filled your heads with the hate I felt. I wanted everyone to feel the way I did. But I was wrong about him."

"Wrong about the geth?" Ken started counting on his fingers. "Eden Prime, Feros, the Citadel-"

"I know. Trust me. But when I was working on him, I had direct access to his thoughts and memories. I was literally reading his mind. And what I saw in there," Tali's throat constricted to the point where she couldn't speak anymore. She just shook her head. How could anyone believe it, without seeing it themselves?

Ken joined Tali at the rail, looking over the edge. "So it really happened like everybody says? That bucket of bolts really went back for them?"

"It's all true. Every word of it."

The thrum of the drive core was the only sound in the compartment for a long time. Ken scowled, lost in thought. "Good man, then, I guess," he finally said. "Well, good geth anyway. Though even you're calling it a him now. So I guess it's official."

"I am, aren't I?" Tali smiled. "Well, he really has no gender, and technically he's a 'they' instead of a singular entity. It's interesting, though. Legion views the _Normandy_ as a collective entity even though we're independent of one another. I guess from his perspective, we're the independent processes inhabiting a single platform. Or maybe Legion sees its physical platform a ship, with a crew made up of its collective processes."

Ken 's eyes drooped shut and he began snoring loudly, slumping against the rail.

Tali jabbed his belly with both fingers. "Very funny, bosh'tet!"

"Oof! Sorry, ma'am. Dozed off there. Don't know what happened." Ken grinned. "But a superior touching her subordinate like that is harassment. I think I like it."

"Then go back to sleep and dream on," Tali said. She tilted her head towards him. "So, do you think you can give Legion a chance?"

Ken shrugged. "I still don't know all the whys but for you, yeah. I'll do it."

"I could tell you the whys," Tali guided Ken back to the corridor with her arm around his shoulder. "But if you really want to know, ask him. It's a technique I've just recently come to appreciate myself."

When Tali and Ken returned to Engineering, Gabby was walking Legion through the basics of the propulsion console. Tali moved behind them. "What do you think, Gabby?"

"He's nothing but trouble but I think we can work with him," Gabby said. "Can he stay?"

"If Tali vouches for him," Ken said, "it's good enough for me. He can stay."

"I was talking about _you_ , idiot." Gabby gave the geth a nod. "Legion's a keeper. Right, boss?"

"I think there's room for both of them," Tali gave Ken a pointed stare. "For now..."

Ken pushed past the two women and extended his hand to Legion. "I sure hope you're a _he,_ because I'm badly outnumbered down here, brother."

"We do not have a gender." Legion returned the handshake. "We are a gestalt entity occupying a mechanical platform and can more accurately be referred to as _they."_

Ken's eyes rolled back in his head. "Good god, now it's in stereo..."

"Better get used to it. He- _they_ are going to be here a while." Tali lifted a tool satchel from the deck and extended it to Legion. "OK, we're going to be in the core today. Gabby, you'll need to get suited up. Ken, you monitor us from here, and Legion," She pointed at the geth. "...we need to figure out your tolerances and what kind of shielding you'll need. Have EDI send you the emission specs."

"Acknowledged." Legion activated its omnitool.

A voice echoed over the ship's PA. _"Tali? It's Kelly."_

Tali held up a finger to her staff. "Hi, Kelly, what is it?"

_"Commander Shepard would like to see both you and Legion in his quarters."_

"Right now?"

_"Well he didn't say that, specifically. But I think that was the gist of it."_

Tali sighed. "Tell him we're on our way."

_"Thanks, Tali. Bye."_

Tali clawed the sides of her helmet and let out a loud growl. "Just once I'd like to start the day without another damned meeting."

Ken and Gabby gave each other sour looks. "Three guesses who called this little party," Ken grumbled.

"Congratulations, Legion," Gabby said. "You're about to get your first ass-chewing from the ice queen."

"Yeah, it's kind of an engineering tradition. Welcome to the team!"

Tali leaned against her console and drummed her fingers against it. Commander Shepard was ecstatic when Tali asked to have Legion assigned to her. Legion was already assisting almost every department. Without need for rest or sustenance and an endless willingness to help, the geth rapidly became a favorite of all three shifts throughout the ship - everywhere except Engineering. Now with that restriction now lifted, Legion had full run of the _Normandy,_ with the Chief Engineer's blessing no less. But Shepard's approval no doubt blasted through his XO's carefully crafted duty schedule like a mass driver, and Miranda was probably up there waiting for Tali to pick up the shrapnel.

She pulled a large, heavy spanner from her tool belt and smacked the end of it into her open hand. "Might take this along in case I need to perform some percussive maintenance." Her techs grinned and nodded approvingly. She then slid open a nearby storage locker and secured her equipment inside, the spanner included. "But I'm sure she just wants to tell us what a good job we've been doing. We'll be back as soon as we can, and we'll start the core runup."

"Give 'er hell, Chief!" Gabby said.

Tali motioned for Legion to follow her. "Come on, Legion. Let's go find out how much trouble we're in."


	10. A New Dawn

Tali rubbed her hands as the elevator ascended to the Commander's quarters. Just when it seemed like life might be getting back to normal...

"We are detecting elevated biometric indications of emotional distress."

Tali jumped at the sound of Legion's voice. Ordinarily, she was acutely aware of the geth's location on the ship at any time. Now, she'd forgotten what was standing right next to her. "What? Oh, sorry. This is just... Politics. After Shepard appointed me chief engineer, Miranda and I had a disagreement over who was actually in charge of our department."

"Was this conflict resolved?"

"I thought so, but who can tell with Miranda?"

But when the door opened to the Commander's quarters, the Miranda was nowhere to be seen. Shepard stood alone and waved the pair in from the hallway. "Come on in. Sorry to interrupt your work, but something's come up."

Tali tried to make eye contact, but he turned away to lead them inside without looking at her. "Let me guess... Cerberus doesn't approve of my staffing choices."

"Of course they don't." Shepard laughed and gestured them toward the lower level. "Have a seat."

Legion sat on one of the couches, a gesture of compliance as opposed to seeking comfort like an organic. Tali remained standing, arms crossed, in front of Shepard. "Miranda?"

"The Illusive Man, actually," Shepard said. "He's concerned about the schematics of this ship falling into the hands of the geth. But that's not why I called you up here."

Legion's facial plates rippled. "We will not share data designated as classified with the collective."

"I know," Shepard said to the geth. "You're no more of a danger than, say, a quarian chief engineer. Or a turian weapons officer. Or a commander who made a good run at taking out Cerberus facilities, just for example. We're all a risk. We either trust each other, or we don't. And I trust you, Legion. That was good enough for him."

"Me too," Tali said. The tension in her body faded. As usual, the Shepard had taken care of things. But certainly he didn't summon them just to tell them there was no problem.

"Thank you, Shepard-Commander, Creator-Tali'Zorah." Legion said. "Our intention is cooperative integration with the _Normandy_ collective."

Tali laughed. "Well I'd say as of today, you're officially part our collective. Right, Shepard?"

"I'm afraid it's not that simple."

"It never is, is it? So what's the bad news?"

"Stress indicators have resumed," Legion announced.

"Tali, please," Shepard gestured toward the couch, waiting until Tali relented and sat next to the geth. "This is good news, trust me. Right now, the SSV _Shenyang_ is en route to pick up representatives of the Alliance diplomatic corps at Arcturus Station. In eight hours, we'll rendezvous with them at the Utopia mass relay. After which she will proceed directly to the Migrant Fleet for an audience with the Admiralty Board." He paused, looking at both of them in turn. "You two are going to be aboard her."

Tali's respirator sputtered with her sudden attempt to inhale her mask. "What?"

"The Admiralty Board has agreed to negotiations with the geth." Shepard sat on the edge of the table in front of them. "And you two get to be a key part of the process. Now here's the thing, Legion. Whatever you do, stay on the _Shenyang._ Under no circumstances are you to leave that ship. Let the quarians come to you."

"Shepard, wait." Tali stood but found her legs had gone shaky. Cerberus was on the cusp of decoding the collector IFF. The _Normandy_ would be on its way through the Omega Four relay soon after. He was sending her away _now?_

"There's an Admiral on the Board named Xen who wants you in the worst way," Shepard explained. "But you're under diplomatic protection as long as you stay on the _Shenyang_. If they try to take you off, it will be considered an act of war against the Alliance."

"Shepard!" Tali slammed the table with the palms of her hands. "You can't do this!"

He stood to face her. "It's already done, Tali. It's out of my hands. I talked to Anderson last night and told him everything that happened. He made some inquiries at Arcturus. They got excited and called the Admiralty Board. And this morning, the Admirals accepted the Alliance proposal to act as mediators. As part of the deal, they insisted you be there, and as your captain, that I tell you. You're going home."

Tali sunk slowly back down to the couch.

"I'm sorry," Shepard said. "I didn't find out about all this myself until just a few minutes ago. But this changes everything. They want to start negotiations right away."

"Shepard-Commander," Legion said, "The geth were not consulted about these negotiations."

"I know, Legion." Shepard walked to his desk and picked up his omnitool. "I've got a data pack for you outlining the details. Direct from Arcturus. You're free to accept it, amend it, or reject it after all of you look it over."

Legion's omnitool rendered into the air around its wrist. "Standing by to receive download. We require secure access to our network for re-transmission to the collective."

"EDI, open the channel," Shepard said as he sent the information to Legion's omni.

Tali looked up. The negotiations were useless if only one side was in attendance. "What if they don't accept? Do we still have to go?"

"We accept these proposals," Legion said. "Negotiations with the creators will commence immediately with Systems Alliance mediation."

 _This can't be happening,_ Tali thought. She was a neutron caught in reaction that had already started. The geth's lack of bureaucracy robbed her of any chance she had to stop it.

Shepard sat down next to her. "Look, I don't like the timing of this, either. I don't want to lose you. But think about the possibilities. You can help end the war. Get your people home. Hell, maybe they'll overturn that sham of a trial!"

Tali stared at the table. "And where are you going to be?"

"Same plan as always. As soon as Cerberus cracks the IFF, we're going through Omega Four."

Tali leaned back with her hands over her mask. Being recalled to the fleet was the last thing she expected. After her trial, they couldn't be rid of her fast enough. Just like before, the Admiralty Board decided everything for her, and she had no say in the matter. But this time Shepard was going along with it.

"Shepard-Commander," Legion buzzed. "This mobile platform's physical presence is not required for negotiations to commence. We will provide protocols for Alliance diplomatic resources, allowing direct communication with the Collective. We will then accompany the Normandy through the Omega Four relay."

"That's right," Tali said. "We don't have to be there. And if he doesn't go, I'm not going."

"You two don't seem to get it." Shepard stood and paced. "Having you there in person, _both of you_ , is part of the deal. Like it or not, Legion, you're the face of the geth by virtue of being the only mobile platform outside of the Veil. But you've proven that geth are willing to work with organics toward a common good, which is something quarians, and the rest of the galaxy, need to see. And Tali? You're the daughter of an Admiral, an honest-to-goodness hero of the battle of the Citadel, and probably the greatest expert on the geth alive. Both sides will listen to you. Most importantly, you're already talking to each other. The barriers have already come down. You can show them the way."

Shepard paused to gauge their reactions. Legion's head plates cycled through several configurations. Tali just stared at the top of the table. "This is incredible. How can you not be excited about what could come from this?"

"Excited?" Tali looked up at Shepard.

"Yeah!"

"Let me tell you about excitement." Tali stood and planted herself faceplate-to-face with Shepard, "The last time I left, I came back to a funeral. It was the worst experience of my life. Nothing else comes close. Every single day I wondered what I could have done, if only I had been there, if I could have made a difference. I will not go through that again! I'm going to be standing your side, not over another empty casket!"

"Tali-" Shepard tried to put his hands on her shoulders, but she flung them away.

"Tali, Tali, Tali," Tali shouted, on the verge of tears. "I am _Tali'Zorah vas Normandy!_ There is nothing more important than my ship, my crew, or my captain. You will not go through that relay without me. I won't let you!"

Shepard stared, wide eyed at her outburst. Tali rarely let anyone get close enough to see any detail in her face. Other species would constantly peer into her mask as if they were looking for fish in an aquarium. Or, she'd turn away to conceal the shy awkwardness of the lost little girl on pilgrimage that still bubbled to the surface when it was Shepard who looked at her. This time, there was no turning away for either of them.

"Shepard-Commander?" The geth asked during the ensuing silence.

Shepard blinked. "What is it, Legion?"

"The destiny of the Creators and geth is uncertain, regardless of our participation in negotiations. However, If the old machines return, the future of the entire galaxy is in jeopardy. Mutual cooperation against the old machines must be the highest priority."

"That's right," Shepard said. "That's exactly why you and the quarians need to settle things, before the reapers come back."

"Shepard-Commander is in error. Creator-Tali'Zorah's participation in the negotiations increases the probability of a peaceful outcome, but does not guarantee it. If the Creators and geth are unable to reconcile, the status of the galaxy remains unchanged. However, the _Normandy_ collective is the only resource tasked with defeating the collectors and preventing the return of the old machines. If we fail, our shared fate, and the fate of all galactic civilizations, is extermination. As chief engineer, Creator-Tali'Zorah is essential to the survival of the _Normandy_ and success of its mission." Legion rose to stand next to Tali. "Therefore we judge that Creator-Tali'Zorah must remain aboard the _Normandy."_

Tali's gaze never wavered from Shepard's eyes as he pondered the geth's words.

After a moment, he turned away. He walked to his bed, hands locked behind his neck. Tali and Legion both watched him expectantly. He finally turned back to face them. "What am I going to do with you two?" He stared at them, lost in thought for a few seconds, when he let out a soft laugh.

"What?"

"I've never seen you two standing so close. I just realized now how much you have in common."

Tali glanced at the geth next to her. The resemblance was no accident; the proportion of its limbs, hands and feet, the shape of its head, even its posture. Like most species, the quarians made androids in their own image. She blinked. Was Shepard talking about something more than physical appearance? Legion was fighting to stay aboard, trying to convince their commander to it on mission that could very likely result in its destruction... Just like her. But more than that, it was fighting for _her,_ refusing to leave anyone behind, as it had done on Clobakas.

Shepard shook his head, then pointed toward the pair as he approached them. "OK, here's how this is going to play out. We'll get you set up on comms to talk with whoever you need over the relays. If the _Shenyang_ calls, you get to the briefing room. I don't care if you're on duty, if it's in the middle of the night, you're in the can, whatever, you're at their beck and call, on their schedule. Agreed?"

Tali bounced up and down. "Oh, yes! Absolutely!"

"And I want updates from the Alliance ambassador every four hours and copies of all your correspondence and all transmissions logged to my console. Don't make me come looking for it."

"You'll have it," Tali put her hands on Shepard's chest. "I swear."

"And if either of you need my help or input on anything, find me, no matter what I'm doing."

"Keelah!" Tali cried. "Thank you!"

Legion panned between the two organics. "We are remaining aboard the _Normandy?"_

"Yes!" Tali fell against the geth, shaking its shoulder. "We're staying!"

"Thank you, Shepard-Commander," Legion said, seemingly oblivious to the laughing quarian dangling from its shoulder. "We will comply with your instructions."

Shepard smiled, though it wasn't as happy en expression as it should have been. "All right, I'll let Anderson know what the updated plan is. Dismissed."

Legion walked up the stairs to the exit, but Tali lingered, pausing on the middle step to look back at Shepard. His hands were on his hips, and he bit his lower lip as humans tended to do when worried. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm just preparing myself for the response I'm going to get when I tell Udina and the Admirals that they can't have my crew. It's going to be one hell of a conference call."

"I'm sorry," Tali said, "I didn't mean to get you in trouble. Do you want me to stay while you talk to them?"

"Nah," Shepard said with a shrug. "Udina already hates my guts, and it won't be the first time I told the Admiralty Board to shove it, right? Besides, Anderson's got my back. He'll understand. And if it blows up? What's the worst they can do? Send me on a suicide mission?"

Tali walked back to him. "If they did, I'd go with you."

Shepard smiled, his eyes full of joy but also fear. He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. "You already are. Thank you."

Tali gasped at the embrace. _Thank you for not sending me home, thank you for helping me find peace with Legion, thank you for all of this,_ she thought, but as usual none of those sentiments found their way to her lips. All she could manage was to hold onto him, but that was always enough.

"Don't let them waste this," Shepard whispered.

"I wont," Tali said. "I promise."

Shepard pulled back. Tali noticed the glisten of moisture beneath his eyes. He wanted this to work more than anyone, and he wasn't even quarian. She reached gingerly up with a finger but pulled back as Shepard wiped it clear with his own hand. "All right," he said and waved to the hatch. "Get your new staff back down below and get that core looked at, and update me when you're done. I gotta make a call."

"Aye, sir," Tali said and climbed back up the steps, cursing yet another missed opportunity. As she stepped into the corridor, she cast a backwards glance into Shepard's quarters. He sat with his back to her, staring at the blank monitor in front of him with his hands locked behind his neck. She leaned against the frame of the hatch when a soft electronic buzz erupted from her right. Legion's fish-eye lens poked from within the open elevator.

Tali looked one last time through the hatch before stepping away joining Legion in the lift. "Back to the shop," Tali told it.

They stood in silence as they descended. In spite of their success, a strange feeling lingered. It wasn't fear, even though she just signed up for another hundred chances to die. Was it her own emotional plea that swayed Shepard, or Legion's assessment of failure if she was forced back to the Fleet? It didn't matter either way, she decided. Through their combined effort, they were both staying on the _Normandy._

Legion looked at Tali and then back to the door in an almost organic reaction. Had it sensed her and mirrored her movements? Was it trying to interpret her body language? Or was it simply reacting to some electronic stimulus Tali couldn't detect without an omnitool? _Incompatible methods of communication, resulting in incomplete perspectives._ _Our_ _fundamental dichotomy, still at work._ The hatch opened to Deck Four and she stepped into the empty corridor, with Legion close behind.

One final thought made her stop in her tracks, blocking Legion's path. _They won't know if you don't tell them_ _._ She turned to face the geth. "Thank you," she said. "For everything."

"You are welcome, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy."

* * *

_The End - Continued in_ **For Tomorrow We Die.**


End file.
